Are you telling us that China doesn't have this out clause?
They don't need a "clause". China is an aggressive authoritarian communist government; they do whatever they want until someone threatens to start shooting if they don't stop. I predict that the response will basically be "piss off" (albeit a bit more politely worded). If they are trying to embarrass the Chinese government then they will also achieve nothing. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the US government called CyberSitter and asked them to quietly drop it in the interest of not harming US-Chinese relations (the Chinese take a very dim view of foreigners making negative comments about the "Chinese way" of doing things).
How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?
I would be more amenable to the "macho" argument if the governments of the world, particularly those in Europe, would put aside their reluctance to admit that we have a problem with militant Islam and start killing the terrorists instead of wasting their time on fruitless diplomatic endeavors that simply embolden terrorists everywhere by demonstrating weakness and impotence.
Tip 2: Always watch Japanese television ninja game shows only after being jet-lagged by a 14 hour plane ride and drinking at least 2 large bottles of the cheapest sake (purchased from the nearest airport vending machines); it's twice as funny that way.
In some sense the climate change issue involves intelligence and security concerns because the purported effects of climate change could become the impetus for future wars, terrorism, and social instability. Should the CIA pour significant resources into this? Perhaps not, but some minimal level of observation and planning is probably a wise investment of agency resources against future potential problems. Nobody, least of all the CIA, likes to be caught flat footed when a crisis suddenly hits; especially if the crisis could have been managed with better early intelligence analysis, response planning, and warnings.
This is a problem with closed-source software in general, especially for closed-source software sold on the "fee per license or upgrade" model, and not just Adobe; although, many Adobe products are classic examples of this problem. In the Free Software world the software tends to reach a stable state in which most users are completely (or almost completely) satisfied and the rest is remanded to plugins or addons; especially for niche features that might interest only 1% of the users and not the rest. In Free Software, once a problem is "well solved" there is less incentive to add "bloatware" features in order to generate additional licensing or upgrade fees and so these features are not added, or at least they are not added to the core product, and users can choose additional features, if they want them, from the plugin or addon developers.
Another salient point, IMHO, is that Adobe is interested in more than simple form validation with JavaScript. As others have mentioned in this discussion, Adobe wants to compete with web forms implementations of the type often found in CMS and other web based document management and collaboration tools. Adobe is desperately trying to avoid becoming pigeon holed into the "dumb document" viewing niche by nimble web-based competitors and this is another reason why Adobe, even if they eventually choose to support XForms, will be extremely reluctant to give up the sort of JavaScript support that allows them to "compete" (at least in their minds) with the web-based CMS and document management systems.
My ideal these days would be to just buy a license
But why even bother with "owning" a license? TFA makes a good point when it observes that where the market is really heading is in the direction of streaming video on-demand. It may take some more time to finally get there, particularly for necessary infrastructure build out, but really what we are talking about here is price and convenience. Suppose for example that it costs you $0.99 (or even less with ads for example) for each view of a movie; if it is available in HD streamed to the device of your choice are you really going to care whether or not you "own a license" to watch the content an unlimited number of times? How many times are you going to watch a particular film or tv show episode anyway? IMHO, schemes like DECE and Disney's competing Keychest are really not relevant in the end (and their window of relevance may be closing faster than they think). By the time bandwidth and devices are ready for high-quality on-demand streaming is anyone going to care whether or not a particular piece of content is "theirs"? People will pay for subscriptions (as we are already seeing with Netflix) or on-demand pay-per-view if the price is right. Once the content is digital and stored off site and the prices are low enough, nobody is going to bother with "owning" licenses or even copying the streams; it will be too cheap for most people to care. This will also be right about the time that the "cable model" of scheduled and programmed "one-size-fits-all" content delivered over channels will become completely obsolete; it will no longer have any meaning in an on-demand world with individual intelligent streaming on 100Gb+ home broadband connections.
TFA is a press hit from a PR firm people. Seriously, "Channel Insider"? They aren't even trying very hard to hide the fact that they are a bullshit marketing rag full of advertising copy, "special advertising sections" (you know the ones that try to disguise themselves as "articles" and actually useful content), and "articles" submitted by PR firms on behalf of paying clients to score a "Press Hit". I would put the credibility of anything coming out of "Channel Insider" at just about zero.
Trying to fight RIAA in the courts is a loosing effort.
If the defendant wins the statutory damages argument in court on constitutional grounds then it will not have been wasted effort because it means that the copyright holders would have to get the Constitution amended to specifically allow for LARGE statutory damages for copyright infringement. It requires a super-majority vote in both houses of Congress and a super-majority vote of the states to amend the US Constitution. The RIAA may pay handsomely, but no amount of payola could muster that kind of support. In any case, I don't believe that the RIAA will be able to completely outmaneuver the courts via the legislature; logic and reason will prevail in the end (although it might take a while yet).
this is an argument many of us have wished had been made before, but until this time (as far as I know) it hasn't.
The problem was always one of standing. One does not have standing to make some of these arguments until one is sued in court by the copyright holders. Needless to say, most of us would rather not expose ourselves to massive financial risk simply to have an opportunity to make an argument or to put it more bluntly, the stakes were "too high". However, now that we have a few brave (or desperate) souls who are "stuck in the game" and "willing to make the argument", I agree that it is definitely one that is worth making. I have long been suspicious of why the copyright industry stopped filing new infringement cases in their spamigation campaign, but I think now that it has something to due with the constitutional argument over statutory damages, which forms the bedrock of the copyright industry (i.e. their nuclear financial deterrent). The fact that new cases have not been filed seems to indicate that the copyright industry now fears winning a battle (i.e. against an individual infringer) but losing the war (i.e. losing the protection of LARGE statutory damage awards on Constitutional grounds). Indeed, the unconstitutional statutory damages argument appears to be fairly strong or at least meritorious and that is what the copyright industry fears most; a few thousand lawsuits and PR scare tactics are not worth betting the house (or at least that is what their actions say). After all, if they really believed that the statutory damages argument was without merit then why stop filing new spamigation cases? Actions speak louder than words in this case.
they are afraid of their customers having good experience with Windows and start to question their brand?
That is a distinct possibility. Microsoft took their lumps with Vista, but Windows 7 really does a bang up job from what I have experienced so far. In fact, Windows 7 might just be the first Microsoft OS to really give Apple a run for their money in slick user interfaces, eye candy and ease of use departments. It should also be noted that Microsoft retains a large advantage in number and variety of third party apps going forward, including open source apps, whereas Apple appears to be more concerned with their iPhone and mobile device (ala the rumored tablet) ecosystems. Even there Apple will come under pressure from Android and Google. Perhaps this will be enough to wipe those smiles of smug cult-of-mac users.
what's to stop the Chinese from flooding the market with metals for a year or two, collapsing the price and bankrupting the mines?
This is the same sort of argument that people make in support of restrictions against "predatory pricing" but there has not been a single documented case, at least not that I am aware of, in economic history where a firm has been able to successfully drive all firms out of a market by undercutting prices and then come out the other end with any durable pricing or monopoly power. The argument sounds compelling in theory, but in practice it doesn't work. As soon as prices are raised again to take advantage of the newly created monopoly, new competitors will re-enter the market almost immediately to replace the ones who may have been bankrupted. A relevant and famous example of this in the commodity resource markets was the case of the Herbert Henry Dow and Bromkonvention. They tried to force Dow out of the bromine business by dumping cheap bromine in the United States, but Dow simply instructed his agents to buy up the cheap German bromine in the US and resell it overseas at less than what Bromkonvention was charging elsewhere. The Germans were forced to give up because they were losing money and not hurting Dow.
The international producer cartels can keep the market for petroleum, gold and gemstones artificially controlled, but there is no such beast for rare earths and every incentive for the Chinese to prevent the creation of one.
Gold and Oil are valuable because there already isn't enough supply to go around even with most known sources in full-tilt production. The case for diamonds and other gemstones is a bit more clearly the result of Cartel behavior, but even the DeBeers monopoly is not what it used to be. However, I maintain my original stance that the Chinese will not be successful in cornering the market for rare earths; as soon as they attempt to raise prices or exert pricing power their competition will very quickly rebound. Mines and equipment don't simply disappear when a company goes bankrupt, they can be bought up and maintained by future competitors until the market becomes profitable once again. The Chinese will gain no long term advantage from hoarding or attempting to buy up all known sources (there are just too many known or potential alternative sources).
No I do not, but that is not the point. The point is not to completely evade determined surveillance, but rather to become too expensive to track effectively. Most corporate data brokers, advertisers, and marketers just aren't going to go to that much trouble to penetrate your disguise. So, with careful planning and proper execution it is possible to preserve a greater measure of personal privacy than would otherwise be possible. Will it prevent government intelligence agencies from tracking you down if they put resources into it? Probably not, but an individual citizen may be able to evade the sort of casual surveillance, corporate data mining, and driftnet techniques that are increasingly being deployed in the name of keeping us "safe". I don't trust the guarantees of the US Federal Government anymore; I don't believe that they are acting in my best interest and I treat encounters with them and their ilk as adversarial.
I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary
It may be necessary at some level, but IMHO it has grown to include far more than is strictly necessary to protect us. Combine this with numerous, superfluous and overreaching laws and you have a recipe for the modern mess in which we know find ourselves presently ensnared. Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of the old west when everyone walked around armed, scores were settled outside of town, and people were generally more polite because being an insulting, rude, and annoying busybody was hazardous to one's continued breathing. These days people just can't seem to live and let live when people are different or have different preferences and it causes no end of trouble for society trying to regulate morals through aggressive law enforcement.
If a company says "if the law comes calling, we will cooperate" and you still agree to give them your information (and as long as this policy is publicly posted before agreeing to share said information), that's on you, not the company.
This is why, when dealing with a third party corporation, one should never tell the truth when a lie will do just as well. It is not difficult to setup and maintain a selection of aliases, complete with mail drops, corporate credit, and bank accounts as necessary. Indeed, the average citizen is compelled by necessity to learn these sorts of skills, which were once the exclusive purview of intelligence operatives and corporate spies, due to the atrocious privacy situation in the US these days.
Because a number of groups with rather different goals have one thing in common.
Or they just don't like nuclear power, mostly due to ignorance and irrational fears, because they are basing their objections on the technology of the 1950s rather than the newer and safer alternatives available today. These people tend to favor what I like to call "hair shirt" solutions to climate change which emphasize mandatory conservation, forced reductions in use and other even less palatable suggestions of the "smelly hippie" variety. Eventually they will be forced to choose between lesser evils and nuclear power is the only currently available option that is even remotely viable for replacement of fossil fuels in non-transportation roles. Even Al Gore admits this in his recent book (although I thought that he was slightly biased "against" in his presentation of Nuclear Energy; especially compared to more upbeat chapters on wind and solar energy which, while useful, cannot supply the majority of our energy needs).
This has been discussed here on Slashdot before, but rare earths are not as difficult to mine and produce as the term "rare" implies; they are rare only in a relative sense compared to other common elements of the Earth's crust. They are mostly not rare on the same order as gold or platinum group metals, although there are exceptions. There are plenty of sources for most of these elements in the continental United States and other nations outside of China; it just costs a certain amount of money to mine and refine them. If China chokes off supplies from their own mines and processors then it will make those same sorts of mines and processors cost-competitive again here in the United States and elsewhere in the world. This really isn't that big of a deal.
The waste of money through poor efficiency and accuracy
This is the same government that is going to "eliminate" medicare waste and make quality health care "budget neutral" and affordable? Does anybody with a brain actually believe that?
Because corporations cannot use (misuse) said information to jail people.
In the US we also have longer prison terms than any of the EU countries, with the possible exception of the UK, for similar crimes. This is mostly due to decades of "get tough on crime" initiatives commonly introduced by politicians to score political points with ignorant and misinformed constituents. Additionally, there are many more "mandatory minimum" sentences for crimes committed here in the US which tie the hands of judges and require harsh punishments; even for non-violent or first time offenders. Finally, a felony conviction in the US these days is like a modern day "scarlet letter"; almost certainly punishing those convicted even after a sentence has been served with lower income, job discrimination, and social ostracization (i.e. no more forgiveness or second chances). So perhaps now the GP can understand why some of us (the ones who can still think for ourselves anyway) are so concerned about an overreaching and powerful government that doesn't respect privacy and pokes around in people's private affairs.
Seriously, why not just invest some time learning how to properly use the keyboard? People are always looking for something, like voice to text, that will allow them to be as proficient as their peers without having to learn to type. If muscle controls are anything like speech to text software the training sessions alone are going to take almost as much time as just learning to type. They should just pick up a copy of mavis beacon and have at it (which wouldn't have been necessary now had they actually paid attention in their high school typing or computer classes).
What they did not expect was that the end-of-month calculation routine in the old software used a "clever" trick: add one month, remove one day...
This demonstrates why it is important to document any "clever tricks" used in a software system. Your clever trick might eventually become someone else's holiday bane; especially if the "clever trick" wasn't really necessary in the first place, except to facilitate laziness on the part of the original programmers.
It is not always a question of need, but sometimes one of simply accommodating a reasonable wish by developers for complete control over their workstations. In my experience, most developers tend to think of their workstation, configurations, and software in much the same way that a master craftsman would his personal tools. Developers are generally logical and practical people, so if you indulge them on their own workstations, servers, and subnets then they will usually understand and respect your decision as a system administrator to firewall off those parts of the network (i.e. "devland") from the rest of the production environment. Personally, my sysadmin loves the fact that I maintain my own workstation, servers, and (small) subnets. I haven't caused him any extra work in the three years since we began the arrangement. Now, I understand that not every corporate user is willing or even able to handle this level of IT responsibility; but IMHO devs are usually good to go with taking care of their own so why not make them happy?
If some news outlet actually did a hard hitting expose on them, maybe, MAYBE, they'd fall from grace.
If you asked random people off the street what they thought about Diebold the responses would probably be along the lines of "Diebold?", "Who are they?" or "Never heard of them". Diebold is way too far below the public radar to attract a hard hitting expose from any major news organization.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you telling us that China doesn't have this out clause?
They don't need a "clause". China is an aggressive authoritarian communist government; they do whatever they want until someone threatens to start shooting if they don't stop. I predict that the response will basically be "piss off" (albeit a bit more politely worded). If they are trying to embarrass the Chinese government then they will also achieve nothing. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the US government called CyberSitter and asked them to quietly drop it in the interest of not harming US-Chinese relations (the Chinese take a very dim view of foreigners making negative comments about the "Chinese way" of doing things).
How about we quit giving away all of our hard won freedoms like a bunch of scared pussies?
I would be more amenable to the "macho" argument if the governments of the world, particularly those in Europe, would put aside their reluctance to admit that we have a problem with militant Islam and start killing the terrorists instead of wasting their time on fruitless diplomatic endeavors that simply embolden terrorists everywhere by demonstrating weakness and impotence.
Tip 2: Always watch Japanese television ninja game shows only after being jet-lagged by a 14 hour plane ride and drinking at least 2 large bottles of the cheapest sake (purchased from the nearest airport vending machines); it's twice as funny that way.
In some sense the climate change issue involves intelligence and security concerns because the purported effects of climate change could become the impetus for future wars, terrorism, and social instability. Should the CIA pour significant resources into this? Perhaps not, but some minimal level of observation and planning is probably a wise investment of agency resources against future potential problems. Nobody, least of all the CIA, likes to be caught flat footed when a crisis suddenly hits; especially if the crisis could have been managed with better early intelligence analysis, response planning, and warnings.
This is a problem with closed-source software in general, especially for closed-source software sold on the "fee per license or upgrade" model, and not just Adobe; although, many Adobe products are classic examples of this problem. In the Free Software world the software tends to reach a stable state in which most users are completely (or almost completely) satisfied and the rest is remanded to plugins or addons; especially for niche features that might interest only 1% of the users and not the rest. In Free Software, once a problem is "well solved" there is less incentive to add "bloatware" features in order to generate additional licensing or upgrade fees and so these features are not added, or at least they are not added to the core product, and users can choose additional features, if they want them, from the plugin or addon developers.
Another salient point, IMHO, is that Adobe is interested in more than simple form validation with JavaScript. As others have mentioned in this discussion, Adobe wants to compete with web forms implementations of the type often found in CMS and other web based document management and collaboration tools. Adobe is desperately trying to avoid becoming pigeon holed into the "dumb document" viewing niche by nimble web-based competitors and this is another reason why Adobe, even if they eventually choose to support XForms, will be extremely reluctant to give up the sort of JavaScript support that allows them to "compete" (at least in their minds) with the web-based CMS and document management systems.
My ideal these days would be to just buy a license
But why even bother with "owning" a license? TFA makes a good point when it observes that where the market is really heading is in the direction of streaming video on-demand. It may take some more time to finally get there, particularly for necessary infrastructure build out, but really what we are talking about here is price and convenience . Suppose for example that it costs you $0.99 (or even less with ads for example) for each view of a movie; if it is available in HD streamed to the device of your choice are you really going to care whether or not you "own a license" to watch the content an unlimited number of times? How many times are you going to watch a particular film or tv show episode anyway? IMHO, schemes like DECE and Disney's competing Keychest are really not relevant in the end (and their window of relevance may be closing faster than they think). By the time bandwidth and devices are ready for high-quality on-demand streaming is anyone going to care whether or not a particular piece of content is "theirs"? People will pay for subscriptions (as we are already seeing with Netflix) or on-demand pay-per-view if the price is right . Once the content is digital and stored off site and the prices are low enough, nobody is going to bother with "owning" licenses or even copying the streams; it will be too cheap for most people to care. This will also be right about the time that the "cable model" of scheduled and programmed "one-size-fits-all" content delivered over channels will become completely obsolete; it will no longer have any meaning in an on-demand world with individual intelligent streaming on 100Gb+ home broadband connections.
TFA is a press hit from a PR firm people. Seriously, "Channel Insider"? They aren't even trying very hard to hide the fact that they are a bullshit marketing rag full of advertising copy, "special advertising sections" (you know the ones that try to disguise themselves as "articles" and actually useful content), and "articles" submitted by PR firms on behalf of paying clients to score a "Press Hit". I would put the credibility of anything coming out of "Channel Insider" at just about zero.
Trying to fight RIAA in the courts is a loosing effort.
If the defendant wins the statutory damages argument in court on constitutional grounds then it will not have been wasted effort because it means that the copyright holders would have to get the Constitution amended to specifically allow for LARGE statutory damages for copyright infringement. It requires a super-majority vote in both houses of Congress and a super-majority vote of the states to amend the US Constitution. The RIAA may pay handsomely, but no amount of payola could muster that kind of support. In any case, I don't believe that the RIAA will be able to completely outmaneuver the courts via the legislature; logic and reason will prevail in the end (although it might take a while yet).
this is an argument many of us have wished had been made before, but until this time (as far as I know) it hasn't.
The problem was always one of standing. One does not have standing to make some of these arguments until one is sued in court by the copyright holders. Needless to say, most of us would rather not expose ourselves to massive financial risk simply to have an opportunity to make an argument or to put it more bluntly, the stakes were "too high". However, now that we have a few brave (or desperate) souls who are "stuck in the game" and "willing to make the argument", I agree that it is definitely one that is worth making. I have long been suspicious of why the copyright industry stopped filing new infringement cases in their spamigation campaign, but I think now that it has something to due with the constitutional argument over statutory damages, which forms the bedrock of the copyright industry (i.e. their nuclear financial deterrent). The fact that new cases have not been filed seems to indicate that the copyright industry now fears winning a battle (i.e. against an individual infringer) but losing the war (i.e. losing the protection of LARGE statutory damage awards on Constitutional grounds). Indeed, the unconstitutional statutory damages argument appears to be fairly strong or at least meritorious and that is what the copyright industry fears most; a few thousand lawsuits and PR scare tactics are not worth betting the house (or at least that is what their actions say). After all, if they really believed that the statutory damages argument was without merit then why stop filing new spamigation cases? Actions speak louder than words in this case.
That can only lead to good things.
Well it probably won't lead to mechas and you have to admit that mechas are pretty cool.
Stephen King? Isn't he dead?
they are afraid of their customers having good experience with Windows and start to question their brand?
That is a distinct possibility. Microsoft took their lumps with Vista, but Windows 7 really does a bang up job from what I have experienced so far. In fact, Windows 7 might just be the first Microsoft OS to really give Apple a run for their money in slick user interfaces, eye candy and ease of use departments. It should also be noted that Microsoft retains a large advantage in number and variety of third party apps going forward, including open source apps, whereas Apple appears to be more concerned with their iPhone and mobile device (ala the rumored tablet) ecosystems. Even there Apple will come under pressure from Android and Google. Perhaps this will be enough to wipe those smiles of smug cult-of-mac users.
what's to stop the Chinese from flooding the market with metals for a year or two, collapsing the price and bankrupting the mines?
This is the same sort of argument that people make in support of restrictions against "predatory pricing" but there has not been a single documented case, at least not that I am aware of, in economic history where a firm has been able to successfully drive all firms out of a market by undercutting prices and then come out the other end with any durable pricing or monopoly power. The argument sounds compelling in theory, but in practice it doesn't work. As soon as prices are raised again to take advantage of the newly created monopoly, new competitors will re-enter the market almost immediately to replace the ones who may have been bankrupted. A relevant and famous example of this in the commodity resource markets was the case of the Herbert Henry Dow and Bromkonvention. They tried to force Dow out of the bromine business by dumping cheap bromine in the United States, but Dow simply instructed his agents to buy up the cheap German bromine in the US and resell it overseas at less than what Bromkonvention was charging elsewhere. The Germans were forced to give up because they were losing money and not hurting Dow.
The international producer cartels can keep the market for petroleum, gold and gemstones artificially controlled, but there is no such beast for rare earths and every incentive for the Chinese to prevent the creation of one.
Gold and Oil are valuable because there already isn't enough supply to go around even with most known sources in full-tilt production. The case for diamonds and other gemstones is a bit more clearly the result of Cartel behavior, but even the DeBeers monopoly is not what it used to be. However, I maintain my original stance that the Chinese will not be successful in cornering the market for rare earths; as soon as they attempt to raise prices or exert pricing power their competition will very quickly rebound. Mines and equipment don't simply disappear when a company goes bankrupt, they can be bought up and maintained by future competitors until the market becomes profitable once again. The Chinese will gain no long term advantage from hoarding or attempting to buy up all known sources (there are just too many known or potential alternative sources).
Do you know a better place?
No I do not, but that is not the point. The point is not to completely evade determined surveillance, but rather to become too expensive to track effectively. Most corporate data brokers, advertisers, and marketers just aren't going to go to that much trouble to penetrate your disguise. So, with careful planning and proper execution it is possible to preserve a greater measure of personal privacy than would otherwise be possible. Will it prevent government intelligence agencies from tracking you down if they put resources into it? Probably not, but an individual citizen may be able to evade the sort of casual surveillance, corporate data mining, and driftnet techniques that are increasingly being deployed in the name of keeping us "safe". I don't trust the guarantees of the US Federal Government anymore; I don't believe that they are acting in my best interest and I treat encounters with them and their ilk as adversarial.
I think most of us would agree that law enforcement is necessary
It may be necessary at some level, but IMHO it has grown to include far more than is strictly necessary to protect us. Combine this with numerous, superfluous and overreaching laws and you have a recipe for the modern mess in which we know find ourselves presently ensnared. Its enough to make one nostalgic for the days of the old west when everyone walked around armed, scores were settled outside of town, and people were generally more polite because being an insulting, rude, and annoying busybody was hazardous to one's continued breathing. These days people just can't seem to live and let live when people are different or have different preferences and it causes no end of trouble for society trying to regulate morals through aggressive law enforcement.
If a company says "if the law comes calling, we will cooperate" and you still agree to give them your information (and as long as this policy is publicly posted before agreeing to share said information), that's on you, not the company.
This is why, when dealing with a third party corporation, one should never tell the truth when a lie will do just as well. It is not difficult to setup and maintain a selection of aliases, complete with mail drops, corporate credit, and bank accounts as necessary. Indeed, the average citizen is compelled by necessity to learn these sorts of skills, which were once the exclusive purview of intelligence operatives and corporate spies, due to the atrocious privacy situation in the US these days.
Because a number of groups with rather different goals have one thing in common.
Or they just don't like nuclear power, mostly due to ignorance and irrational fears, because they are basing their objections on the technology of the 1950s rather than the newer and safer alternatives available today. These people tend to favor what I like to call "hair shirt" solutions to climate change which emphasize mandatory conservation, forced reductions in use and other even less palatable suggestions of the "smelly hippie" variety. Eventually they will be forced to choose between lesser evils and nuclear power is the only currently available option that is even remotely viable for replacement of fossil fuels in non-transportation roles. Even Al Gore admits this in his recent book (although I thought that he was slightly biased "against" in his presentation of Nuclear Energy; especially compared to more upbeat chapters on wind and solar energy which, while useful, cannot supply the majority of our energy needs).
This has been discussed here on Slashdot before, but rare earths are not as difficult to mine and produce as the term "rare" implies; they are rare only in a relative sense compared to other common elements of the Earth's crust. They are mostly not rare on the same order as gold or platinum group metals, although there are exceptions. There are plenty of sources for most of these elements in the continental United States and other nations outside of China; it just costs a certain amount of money to mine and refine them. If China chokes off supplies from their own mines and processors then it will make those same sorts of mines and processors cost-competitive again here in the United States and elsewhere in the world. This really isn't that big of a deal.
The waste of money through poor efficiency and accuracy
This is the same government that is going to "eliminate" medicare waste and make quality health care "budget neutral" and affordable? Does anybody with a brain actually believe that?
Because corporations cannot use (misuse) said information to jail people.
In the US we also have longer prison terms than any of the EU countries, with the possible exception of the UK, for similar crimes. This is mostly due to decades of "get tough on crime" initiatives commonly introduced by politicians to score political points with ignorant and misinformed constituents. Additionally, there are many more "mandatory minimum" sentences for crimes committed here in the US which tie the hands of judges and require harsh punishments; even for non-violent or first time offenders. Finally, a felony conviction in the US these days is like a modern day "scarlet letter"; almost certainly punishing those convicted even after a sentence has been served with lower income, job discrimination, and social ostracization (i.e. no more forgiveness or second chances). So perhaps now the GP can understand why some of us (the ones who can still think for ourselves anyway) are so concerned about an overreaching and powerful government that doesn't respect privacy and pokes around in people's private affairs.
Seriously, why not just invest some time learning how to properly use the keyboard? People are always looking for something, like voice to text, that will allow them to be as proficient as their peers without having to learn to type. If muscle controls are anything like speech to text software the training sessions alone are going to take almost as much time as just learning to type. They should just pick up a copy of mavis beacon and have at it (which wouldn't have been necessary now had they actually paid attention in their high school typing or computer classes).
What they did not expect was that the end-of-month calculation routine in the old software used a "clever" trick: add one month, remove one day...
This demonstrates why it is important to document any "clever tricks" used in a software system. Your clever trick might eventually become someone else's holiday bane; especially if the "clever trick" wasn't really necessary in the first place, except to facilitate laziness on the part of the original programmers.
It is not always a question of need, but sometimes one of simply accommodating a reasonable wish by developers for complete control over their workstations. In my experience, most developers tend to think of their workstation, configurations, and software in much the same way that a master craftsman would his personal tools. Developers are generally logical and practical people, so if you indulge them on their own workstations, servers, and subnets then they will usually understand and respect your decision as a system administrator to firewall off those parts of the network (i.e. "devland") from the rest of the production environment. Personally, my sysadmin loves the fact that I maintain my own workstation, servers, and (small) subnets. I haven't caused him any extra work in the three years since we began the arrangement. Now, I understand that not every corporate user is willing or even able to handle this level of IT responsibility; but IMHO devs are usually good to go with taking care of their own so why not make them happy?
If some news outlet actually did a hard hitting expose on them, maybe, MAYBE, they'd fall from grace.
If you asked random people off the street what they thought about Diebold the responses would probably be along the lines of "Diebold?", "Who are they?" or "Never heard of them". Diebold is way too far below the public radar to attract a hard hitting expose from any major news organization.