The cost moderated the usage so much that they're mostly no longer enabled even if they're present. The remaining service will be shutting down completely at the end of this year.
And good riddance;^)
But note that they didn't remove them because they were disturbing to other customers, but because usage was low enough that they were probably losing money on the product. So why not remove the loss, and allow people to use their cells, probably with a charge involved, as well?
I've had Blackberry apps that refuse to operate after their permissions are removed. Note that they don't crash, they just refuse to work (they ask for the permissions, and if you say no, they close). I would be unsurprised to find a similar outcome on the iOS. I'm generally okay with that, I just wish they'd show their permission requirements before I downloaded them - I don't need a flashlight app that wants to see my contact list.
I can agree with much of what you say, but I would be happy if I could set my global permissions, give exceptions when I feel like it, and the apps just said, "Sorry, but we will not operate if we can't upload copies of all your selfies." Then I could choose to let it see my pictures, or I could uninstall it. Either way, I know what's happening, and I get to choose the outcome.
I currently have Blackberry, probably my last, and will likely replace it with an Android. But it has this feature, and it will be missed.
Why would anyone who was actually involved in the wiretapping sound surprised when he found the wiretapping data he allegedly made? It makes no sense.
What does make sense is if either the leaked cables also contained this data, or someone else leaked the data to wikileaks but they hadn't got round to looking at it yet.
Well, to be fair, if I (someone not in the security industry, working alone, and with limited resources) tried to wiretap the entire Icelandic Parliament and it actually worked, I'd be pretty fucking surprised, too. And my next stop would be to buy a lottery ticket. Just one.
Okay, you gotta pick one. The US Army is wiretapping foreign governments (Iceland), as well as the NSA (Germany)?? Wouldn't Occam's Razor indicate that the US Army got their wiretapping logs of Iceland from the NSA? Doesn't that seem somewhat more plausible to you? That two branches of the same government would share some amount of information?
Or are you suggesting that Assange was releasing sensitive government information, screwing around with numerous women, and wiretapping foreign governments, and then discussing that info with a stray whistle-blower in the middle of a conversation about information the whistle-blower had handed over?
USMil: We have Assange discussing logs of the Icelandic Parliament!!
Slashdotters: Who was he talking to?
USMil: Bradley Manning!
Slashdotters: And did Assange say where he got those logs from?
USMil: Um...Bradley Manning?
Slasdotters: And where exactly did Bradley Manning get those logs from?
USMil: No more questions! This press release is over!
Not all of the information Snowden found has been made public yet, so there's still opportunity for this concern to be proven justified too.
At this point, the only safe thing to do is to assume that if an attack is theoretically possible, then the NSA is exploiting it.
Also, even if the Snowden documents don't prove this is being done, it can be done, and the security-conscious choice is to assume it will be done. Otherwise, why engage the rest of the security on your smartphone in the first place?
I think you're thinking of Windows. Linux works because it can have multiple versions of the same library, and minor versions are compatible, so you only need one copy of each major version to remain compatible with old software.
I've heard of problems with Linux with shared libraries, but not to the same degree as with Windows. I got the impression that it was more irritating because it was the exception rather than the rule, so it was tested lower on the list of things that might go wrong. This is a vague recollection from decades ago, so it likely isn't relevant today.
That said, Windows isn't much better off when every program has its own copy of zlib.dll and you have to update fifty of them when a new security fix is released.
And this is how Windows solved DLL Hell. It's almost as good as statically linking for linking errors (the dll can still be deleted), less download time for library patches (just the dll instead of the whole application), and actually works. That last step is vital. Prior to this, they tried to have multiple versions in a Windows directory, and I think it was a toss-up over what caused more problems: apps using a newer dll version than they were supposed to, apps using an older version than they were supposed to, or slightly different dlls overwriting others while having just enough difference to break an app somewhere (I've seen more than one dll with all metadata the same except for the modified date and the number of bytes).
A lot of people have already laughed at the question you raised, but I think it would help to make it clear why. Prior to Microsoft purchasing it, and taking over 5 YEARS to convert it to MS technology (perhaps as many as 8), Hotmail was run on *NIX servers (Solaris and FreeBSD). At the time, I believe it was the biggest free email domain out there. Here is a wiki about it.
Some people excel at thinking through problems, some people excel at manually solving problems. Some good examples would be the difference between designing a gun and using a gun or the difference between designing a plane and flying a plane. Thinking through all the steps in a flight procedure can take longer than just doing it. But a guy who can list every single step in one of those flight procedures and why they are done, as well as the math, is the kind of guy I want designing planes. There are some special people who are equally good at both.
The answer is the same as it always is. Don't measure what's easy - measure for the results you want to see. Do you want the janitor to check the restaurant bathroom every 15 minutes, or do you want the bathroom to be spotless after the janitor leaves every 15 minutes. One is easy; just have him sign a sheet in the bathroom. The other requires actual work, spot checks after the janitor leaves the bathroom for instance. Similarly, a factory worker may be easy to assess. Throughput without errors or injuries seems like a reasonable starting point.
So, what do we want to see from our academics? A large quantity of publications? A large quantity of publications, weighted towards more prestigious journals? Innovative science? Rigorous science? Great teaching skills, engaging the students? Determine what you want to see, measure for that. It may not be a quantitative assessment, which makes the measurement harder, but it will actually get you the results you want, rather than people gaming the system for a positive assessment.
See, except for the part where plastic guns are illegal, I don't see what someone who has a plastic gun has done that is criminal. You are aware that all gun owners aren't criminals, aren't you? That's like saying, "I've made 3-piece suits illegal. Now let's go arrest all those criminals who are wearing 3-piece suits." If the criminal has committed some other crime, the police can already arrest him! Once they have proof he actually did something illegal, that is.
TV Advertizer: "Always wanted to be a dickhead, but were never good enough to do it on your own? Well, have we got a product for you! Just push this big red button and everyone around will know you're a dickhead! It's that simple! Order now and an inflatable floozy will be included at NO CHARGE! (Male floozies not available.)"
While what you say is generally true, over the last several decades the consumer goods industry has gone from quality, durable products to being almost completely filled with products that suffer from planned obsolescence. This guarantees recurring revenue for the consumer goods industry. Why would the pharmaceutical industry not have the same preference? Altruism? Their annual incomes suggest they aren't non-profits.
This wouldn't explain why we've evolved to live to the ripe old age of 70+, which hasn't been unusual as long as written records have been found (yes, a drop in the bucket in evolutionary terms, but still), or why there are indications that older people help the survival of the species, as well as the associated evolutionary indications to promote it. You may feel the urge to trot out the average lifespan evidence; don't. Again, back to those ancient records, which indicate that somewhere between one third and one half of all children died before the age of 5, drastically reducing the average (mean) age.
Yes, they are. Of course, that's not what the law requires, isn't it? Also, given that a standard charger and adapter can be had for as much as or less than an iPhone charger, it seems to meet the functional requirements, of the law, as well.
but at the end of the day, would you rather get stuff done much, much faster and allow the cat video to buffer for 1.5 seconds?
Okay, there are two issues here. As you said, HALF of the network load is Youtube and Hulu. Clearly, a significant proportion of users think their entertainment is important. No, 1.5 seconds isn't important, but 15 or 30 seconds, over and over again, is. Second, QoS and traffic shaping to provide the best service to your customers is all well and good, and I support it. But let's be realistic. Given all the previous behaviour of the ISPs, I think it's much more likely they will use QoS to reduce the effectiveness of VOIP and video streaming in order to drive their ISP customers to their VOIP and video on demand offerings.
Where I live, I have government-managed healthcare, and while it has problems, I don't lie awake at night worrying if my kid is going to contract some rare illness and leave me at the mercy of never being able to change jobs without researching what the new health care plan will cover. (Well, you don't have to either, anymore, now that "Obama-care" is in place. A real tragedy, that.) I can also eat just about anything I like, and about the only restrictions are that the treats sold to me have to be made from actual food - little things like Olestra (and it's anal leakage!), increasingly trans-fats, and cheese-like products that mostly didn't see the inside of a cow need not apply. If you want to buy lard by the pound from the local grocery store and eat it with a spoon, no one (from the government, anyway) is going to insist that you stop. Bacon is in good supply, as well. So is McDonald's and all the other fast food joints, with generally better-quality ingredients than are found in the States (I don't believe that was coincidental to the government food requirements). If I was fool enough to smoke tobacco, I'd pay a premium, but when I get cancer, it's all covered. If I was fool enough to drink (which I do, rarely), I can do so at a level that doesn't leave me making an ass of myself, and still have plenty of cash in my pocket, or I can take a trip to the States and buy some more cheaply (which is not incentive for me to make an ass of myself, either). If I was fool enough to smoke pot, I'd face a fine if caught by the police rather than risking life in prison (presuming I'm carrying quantities that are small enough to be considered 'for personal use'). Other risky behaviour, such as skydiving, off-road sports, scuba diving, and others are generally available. Yes, there might be some "sports" where the participants precede their acts with "Hey, ya'll, watch this!" that would be illegal here, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
In other liberty-restricting countries, I hear that prostitution and drugs are legal, and they, too, have government-managed healthcare. Yet another tragedy of government interference, I presume.
I would counter that with the U.S. Constitution.
Torture? Check.
No right to speedy trial (or even charges)? Check.
Indefinite detention? Check.
No freedom of speech? Not checked. Yet.
Oh look, all those activities are covered under one document! And if you use the excuse that it is because they attacked your country, please look back at the treatment that the Germans and Japanese received from most nations in WWII, coupled with the civilian deaths and atrocities committed by them. There is absolutely no justification for the violation of human rights being perpetrated by the US right now based on prior standards of how bad actors were treated. The only justification is "they are not one of us, therefore they are less than us", the same excuse used for atrocities since time immemorial. Well, I suppose you could also use the vengeance card, which has the exact same pedigree as the tribalism card.
They've evolved to get along very well in the climate as it is today.
You mean the ones who evolved to be used to below-freezing temperatures 9 months of the year, and find 10 degrees Celsius to be rather warm? Or the ones who evolved to be used to temperature swings from below freezing to over 35 degrees Celsius in a single day, with very low relative humidity? Or do you mean the ones who evolved to be used to average temperatures ranging from 18 to 50 degrees Celsius and typically getting 2 meters of rain per year (most of that in a 6-month span)?
Something tells me that a simple climate change isn't going to spell the end for homo sapiens. It might spell the end of a lot of humans, but I suspect the species will survive that particular event. (The social unrest associated with a die-off event will doubtless cause many problems, too.)
...don't you care a lot more about the homo sapien species?
Or were you trying to say that there are certain groups that you care about more than the average (non-human) species?
The problem with suspend nowadays is that it takes almost as long to restore 8GB or more of RAM as it does to perform POST. (This will change yet again when SSDs become commonplace.) Then you wait to see if all the peripherals comes back online properly, THEN you get to see if the OS recovers properly. Except for retaining state, you might as well turn the computer off. I opted the other way, and have mine running all the time. All the tedious housekeeping stuff happens when I'm asleep, and it's always ready for me to use it. I also pay to heat the house half the year anyway (and don't heat or cool the house for 3 months), so it's not as serious a power loss as you'd think.
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The cost moderated the usage so much that they're mostly no longer enabled even if they're present. The remaining service will be shutting down completely at the end of this year.
And good riddance ;^)
But note that they didn't remove them because they were disturbing to other customers, but because usage was low enough that they were probably losing money on the product. So why not remove the loss, and allow people to use their cells, probably with a charge involved, as well?
Of course, working under the presumption that the other guy doesn't matter at all has never caused them to hate you...
Welcome, the US Diplomacy Corps is to the left.
I've had Blackberry apps that refuse to operate after their permissions are removed. Note that they don't crash, they just refuse to work (they ask for the permissions, and if you say no, they close). I would be unsurprised to find a similar outcome on the iOS. I'm generally okay with that, I just wish they'd show their permission requirements before I downloaded them - I don't need a flashlight app that wants to see my contact list.
I can agree with much of what you say, but I would be happy if I could set my global permissions, give exceptions when I feel like it, and the apps just said, "Sorry, but we will not operate if we can't upload copies of all your selfies." Then I could choose to let it see my pictures, or I could uninstall it. Either way, I know what's happening, and I get to choose the outcome.
I currently have Blackberry, probably my last, and will likely replace it with an Android. But it has this feature, and it will be missed.
Why would anyone who was actually involved in the wiretapping sound surprised when he found the wiretapping data he allegedly made? It makes no sense.
What does make sense is if either the leaked cables also contained this data, or someone else leaked the data to wikileaks but they hadn't got round to looking at it yet.
Well, to be fair, if I (someone not in the security industry, working alone, and with limited resources) tried to wiretap the entire Icelandic Parliament and it actually worked, I'd be pretty fucking surprised, too. And my next stop would be to buy a lottery ticket. Just one.
Okay, you gotta pick one. The US Army is wiretapping foreign governments (Iceland), as well as the NSA (Germany)?? Wouldn't Occam's Razor indicate that the US Army got their wiretapping logs of Iceland from the NSA? Doesn't that seem somewhat more plausible to you? That two branches of the same government would share some amount of information?
Or are you suggesting that Assange was releasing sensitive government information, screwing around with numerous women, and wiretapping foreign governments, and then discussing that info with a stray whistle-blower in the middle of a conversation about information the whistle-blower had handed over?
I can just see the conversation...
USMil: We have Assange discussing logs of the Icelandic Parliament!!
Slashdotters: Who was he talking to?
USMil: Bradley Manning!
Slashdotters: And did Assange say where he got those logs from?
USMil: Um...Bradley Manning?
Slasdotters: And where exactly did Bradley Manning get those logs from?
USMil: No more questions! This press release is over!
Not all of the information Snowden found has been made public yet, so there's still opportunity for this concern to be proven justified too.
At this point, the only safe thing to do is to assume that if an attack is theoretically possible, then the NSA is exploiting it.
Also, even if the Snowden documents don't prove this is being done, it can be done, and the security-conscious choice is to assume it will be done. Otherwise, why engage the rest of the security on your smartphone in the first place?
I think you're thinking of Windows. Linux works because it can have multiple versions of the same library, and minor versions are compatible, so you only need one copy of each major version to remain compatible with old software.
I've heard of problems with Linux with shared libraries, but not to the same degree as with Windows. I got the impression that it was more irritating because it was the exception rather than the rule, so it was tested lower on the list of things that might go wrong. This is a vague recollection from decades ago, so it likely isn't relevant today.
That said, Windows isn't much better off when every program has its own copy of zlib.dll and you have to update fifty of them when a new security fix is released.
And this is how Windows solved DLL Hell. It's almost as good as statically linking for linking errors (the dll can still be deleted), less download time for library patches (just the dll instead of the whole application), and actually works. That last step is vital. Prior to this, they tried to have multiple versions in a Windows directory, and I think it was a toss-up over what caused more problems: apps using a newer dll version than they were supposed to, apps using an older version than they were supposed to, or slightly different dlls overwriting others while having just enough difference to break an app somewhere (I've seen more than one dll with all metadata the same except for the modified date and the number of bytes).
A lot of people have already laughed at the question you raised, but I think it would help to make it clear why. Prior to Microsoft purchasing it, and taking over 5 YEARS to convert it to MS technology (perhaps as many as 8), Hotmail was run on *NIX servers (Solaris and FreeBSD). At the time, I believe it was the biggest free email domain out there. Here is a wiki about it.
Some people excel at thinking through problems, some people excel at manually solving problems. Some good examples would be the difference between designing a gun and using a gun or the difference between designing a plane and flying a plane. Thinking through all the steps in a flight procedure can take longer than just doing it. But a guy who can list every single step in one of those flight procedures and why they are done, as well as the math, is the kind of guy I want designing planes. There are some special people who are equally good at both.
The answer is the same as it always is. Don't measure what's easy - measure for the results you want to see. Do you want the janitor to check the restaurant bathroom every 15 minutes, or do you want the bathroom to be spotless after the janitor leaves every 15 minutes. One is easy; just have him sign a sheet in the bathroom. The other requires actual work, spot checks after the janitor leaves the bathroom for instance. Similarly, a factory worker may be easy to assess. Throughput without errors or injuries seems like a reasonable starting point.
So, what do we want to see from our academics? A large quantity of publications? A large quantity of publications, weighted towards more prestigious journals? Innovative science? Rigorous science? Great teaching skills, engaging the students? Determine what you want to see, measure for that. It may not be a quantitative assessment, which makes the measurement harder, but it will actually get you the results you want, rather than people gaming the system for a positive assessment.
See, except for the part where plastic guns are illegal, I don't see what someone who has a plastic gun has done that is criminal. You are aware that all gun owners aren't criminals, aren't you? That's like saying, "I've made 3-piece suits illegal. Now let's go arrest all those criminals who are wearing 3-piece suits." If the criminal has committed some other crime, the police can already arrest him! Once they have proof he actually did something illegal, that is.
TV Advertizer: "Always wanted to be a dickhead, but were never good enough to do it on your own? Well, have we got a product for you! Just push this big red button and everyone around will know you're a dickhead! It's that simple! Order now and an inflatable floozy will be included at NO CHARGE! (Male floozies not available.)"
While what you say is generally true, over the last several decades the consumer goods industry has gone from quality, durable products to being almost completely filled with products that suffer from planned obsolescence. This guarantees recurring revenue for the consumer goods industry. Why would the pharmaceutical industry not have the same preference? Altruism? Their annual incomes suggest they aren't non-profits.
This wouldn't explain why we've evolved to live to the ripe old age of 70+, which hasn't been unusual as long as written records have been found (yes, a drop in the bucket in evolutionary terms, but still), or why there are indications that older people help the survival of the species, as well as the associated evolutionary indications to promote it. You may feel the urge to trot out the average lifespan evidence; don't. Again, back to those ancient records, which indicate that somewhere between one third and one half of all children died before the age of 5, drastically reducing the average (mean) age.
Yes, they are. Of course, that's not what the law requires, isn't it? Also, given that a standard charger and adapter can be had for as much as or less than an iPhone charger, it seems to meet the functional requirements, of the law, as well.
but at the end of the day, would you rather get stuff done much, much faster and allow the cat video to buffer for 1.5 seconds?
Okay, there are two issues here. As you said, HALF of the network load is Youtube and Hulu. Clearly, a significant proportion of users think their entertainment is important. No, 1.5 seconds isn't important, but 15 or 30 seconds, over and over again, is. Second, QoS and traffic shaping to provide the best service to your customers is all well and good, and I support it. But let's be realistic. Given all the previous behaviour of the ISPs, I think it's much more likely they will use QoS to reduce the effectiveness of VOIP and video streaming in order to drive their ISP customers to their VOIP and video on demand offerings.
Easily solved. This will take at the very least a year to show up and a year to be widely adopted. Plenty of time for our bureaucrats to fix that.
And it turns out it's not quite a mandate, at leats in practice. I'll believe it when iPhones come with microUSB adapters.
Ahem.
Don't like 'funny' posts? Change your settings to give funny mods a -1 score, netting them out. Problem (mostly) solved!
Where I live, I have government-managed healthcare, and while it has problems, I don't lie awake at night worrying if my kid is going to contract some rare illness and leave me at the mercy of never being able to change jobs without researching what the new health care plan will cover. (Well, you don't have to either, anymore, now that "Obama-care" is in place. A real tragedy, that.) I can also eat just about anything I like, and about the only restrictions are that the treats sold to me have to be made from actual food - little things like Olestra (and it's anal leakage!), increasingly trans-fats, and cheese-like products that mostly didn't see the inside of a cow need not apply. If you want to buy lard by the pound from the local grocery store and eat it with a spoon, no one (from the government, anyway) is going to insist that you stop. Bacon is in good supply, as well. So is McDonald's and all the other fast food joints, with generally better-quality ingredients than are found in the States (I don't believe that was coincidental to the government food requirements). If I was fool enough to smoke tobacco, I'd pay a premium, but when I get cancer, it's all covered. If I was fool enough to drink (which I do, rarely), I can do so at a level that doesn't leave me making an ass of myself, and still have plenty of cash in my pocket, or I can take a trip to the States and buy some more cheaply (which is not incentive for me to make an ass of myself, either). If I was fool enough to smoke pot, I'd face a fine if caught by the police rather than risking life in prison (presuming I'm carrying quantities that are small enough to be considered 'for personal use'). Other risky behaviour, such as skydiving, off-road sports, scuba diving, and others are generally available. Yes, there might be some "sports" where the participants precede their acts with "Hey, ya'll, watch this!" that would be illegal here, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.
In other liberty-restricting countries, I hear that prostitution and drugs are legal, and they, too, have government-managed healthcare. Yet another tragedy of government interference, I presume.
I would counter that with the U.S. Constitution.
Torture? Check.
No right to speedy trial (or even charges)? Check.
Indefinite detention? Check.
No freedom of speech? Not checked. Yet.
Oh look, all those activities are covered under one document! And if you use the excuse that it is because they attacked your country, please look back at the treatment that the Germans and Japanese received from most nations in WWII, coupled with the civilian deaths and atrocities committed by them. There is absolutely no justification for the violation of human rights being perpetrated by the US right now based on prior standards of how bad actors were treated. The only justification is "they are not one of us, therefore they are less than us", the same excuse used for atrocities since time immemorial. Well, I suppose you could also use the vengeance card, which has the exact same pedigree as the tribalism card.
They've evolved to get along very well in the climate as it is today.
You mean the ones who evolved to be used to below-freezing temperatures 9 months of the year, and find 10 degrees Celsius to be rather warm? Or the ones who evolved to be used to temperature swings from below freezing to over 35 degrees Celsius in a single day, with very low relative humidity? Or do you mean the ones who evolved to be used to average temperatures ranging from 18 to 50 degrees Celsius and typically getting 2 meters of rain per year (most of that in a 6-month span)?
Something tells me that a simple climate change isn't going to spell the end for homo sapiens. It might spell the end of a lot of humans, but I suspect the species will survive that particular event. (The social unrest associated with a die-off event will doubtless cause many problems, too.)
...don't you care a lot more about the homo sapien species?
Or were you trying to say that there are certain groups that you care about more than the average (non-human) species?
Ah, my bad. I equated suspend with hibernate, and sleep with stand by. Looks like suspend is used by Linux (and Win95, go figure) for S3.
The problem with suspend nowadays is that it takes almost as long to restore 8GB or more of RAM as it does to perform POST. (This will change yet again when SSDs become commonplace.) Then you wait to see if all the peripherals comes back online properly, THEN you get to see if the OS recovers properly. Except for retaining state, you might as well turn the computer off. I opted the other way, and have mine running all the time. All the tedious housekeeping stuff happens when I'm asleep, and it's always ready for me to use it. I also pay to heat the house half the year anyway (and don't heat or cool the house for 3 months), so it's not as serious a power loss as you'd think.