It's not even really rape; note that his so called crime only carries a crappy fine as punishment. Oh, and he isn't being charged either. The police just want to ask him some questions; something they normally do over the phone in cases like this, or perhaps send over some officers to the UK for an interview. Nothing that warrants the Interpol warrant (which was issued against the rules), and certainly nothing worth storming an embassy for.
Meh... "real" bikers lament the increased popularity of motorcycles, and old school scuba nuts must hate PADI for making the underwater world accessible to all. I suppose it's only natural that pilots want the skies to themselves. Get off my lawn, but in 3D.
Still, one would hope that flying car pilots will have to pass the same rigorous difficulty tests, or keep their wheels firmly on the ground. And I think many will be unable to pass such a test. I agree with the article, and my money says flying cars will happen not before autonomous flight (including standard protocols for flight direction) becomes practical.
Corporations undeniably have considerable power and influence, but that's a far cry from being the state's puppet masters. The problem is: on difficult issues like IP, which most voters are soft on, politicians are open to be swayed either way. By their advisers, who are most likely lobbyists for corporations. That is the big advantage they have over the general populace: not control over politicians; in this case merely having their ear is enough. The politicians do not understand the issue and are happy to be "properly" informed, and most voters do not give a damn.
In the USA, the situation is slightly worse perhaps: you guys are a nation of lawyers, or at least it is them who are in control. With the president reiterating that IP is the key to the future of American economics, and lawyers having a vested interest in endless IP-related litigation, you can forget about patent or copyright laws ever being reformed. That is, unless politicians and lawmakers with a conscience, and with a decent understanding of the issue, take office. Fat chance of that.
In the Netherlands, national politics is utterly boned. The largest parties are either socialists who stick to their ideology but unfortunately have the wrong one, and the liberals (= moderate right wing) who have a good ideology but seem to have forgotten it completely. I think my vote might go to the Pirate Party this time.
I've used a Communicator 9110 and played around with an E90 for a bit. Both, but the 9110 in particular, suffer from the same problem: they are designed as phones instead of pocket computers with a GSM chip.
That's one important difference between smart phones and feature phones that Nokia never seemed to understand: a smart phone is a pocket computer (call it an "organiser") which happens to have the ability to make calls too. A feature phone is a phone that has some extra apps bolted on. From a design perspective that is an important distinction, and it's the reason why so many Nokia smart phones sucked from a usability point of view, even though they had a decent hardware design.
As for the iPhone, I don't see why it shouldn't be classed as a smart phone, even though it's more locked down. A friend who enjoyed using an iPhone for some years before making the switch to Android joked: "The advantage of Android is that you can customize the whole phone to your liking, including the desktop, the keyboard, etc. The disadvantage is that you have to". Apple locks down the UI, but that default UI has proven to work well for many people. If it doesn't for you, get a 'Droid.
I also recommend an ace team of lawyers, to defend yourself against other megacorps who do not appreciate new competition. Megacorporations like Apple...
So... HBO stands to make more from airing the show on the networks, than they ever could garner from selling the show directly to a much larger audience. Interesting, I had no idea.... and I wonder why.
Is it because of the ads? Is it the g^@-damn ads again? Pardon my French, but the only thing that is starting to annoy me more than the ads themselves is the way whole economic models begin to depend on them. The same thing that gives a silly free social network site a 100 billion dollar price tag... perhaps that is the answer to HBO's revenue as well. Apparently, ads are worth a lot of money. Sure, in many cases, ads pay our way (or part of it). But I am afraid that the tremendous value of these ads will continue the drive we've been seeing for the past decades: more and more of them. See the second installment of Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror" to see what ads and a "mediated" society can become.
Agreed, and I certainly was not suggesting that Facebook should change their model; they can do whatever they feel best serves their interest. But if popular "amateur" producers of content decide to go elsewhere rather than pay FB to make sure they reach their following, then I expect this policy to hurt FB's bottom line rather than help it, since these bloggers will take their ad impressions with them.
For firms, it might not be that much of an issue? But what about people who do what they do for fun rather than profit, like popular bloggers? "Pay or your followers may miss your post" sucks for those people. Perhaps FB ran out of ideas to monetize, and use this to shift the burden of coming up with a good way to make money for this kind of stuff to its more popular members.
No, it’s a combination of tech and humans. The problem is that the old reactors rely far too much on humans to keep things safe, and even with 100% competent and scrupulous people, they could be considered too dangerous. Newer reactor designs reduce the chance of a mishap when the reactor staff screws up, and also reduce the effects of such mishaps.
The idea that technology can make these things 100% foolproof is delusional. But by the same token, dismissing nuclear power (or worse: arguing against improving reactor designs) because our perception of technology as the problem is false, amounts to dangerous intellectual laziness. Say what you will about technology not being the problem, but it can provide solutions and make things safer.
If a nuclear plant could be made as safe* as a gas fired plant, would we worry as much about sloppy procedures, incompetent staff and corner-cutting management? No, and that should be our goal. Which, by the way, might be attainable.
*) in terms of both the chance of accidents happening and the effects of those accidents
IIRC, the evidence was rejected because it was submitted after the deadline has passed. That may sound petty, but the other side in this case should have a chance to examine the evidence and prepare a response. That's how these things work, and should work.
If you use your tablet as a screen together with a keyboard, you will want a mouse as well (or perhaps a separate touch tablet). Having to reach over your keyboard for any mousey action (moving the cursor, menus, etc) gets tiring real soon. I found the same when I tried typing for an extended period of time on an iPad + bluetooth keyboard.
Then again, your question is a good one in light of the remark from the article. That mouse looks insanely ill-suited for extended work, and if you're only using the tablet for short periods of time, the touch screen and virtual leyboard should work well enough.
It’s not only about the money; I recently had an interesting discussion on this topic with a few “management by the numbers” suits of a large company. They do see the downside of increased specialization, compartmentalization and commoditization in IT jobs, combined with an overload of process and management. They understand this has a profound impact on speed, quality, job satisfaction and especially agility and the capability to innovate, but besides a cost reduction it brings something else to the table: predictability. In other words: a standard team of corporate IT drones may deliver “X” with good-enough quality, in 8-10 weeks, for $150k. A small, agile team of motivated coders can deliver “X” with great quality, in 5-12 weeks, for $140-170k (depending). The small team might seem the better pick but the suits prefer the more predictable standard team. Easier to plan, to budget for, to outsource, and it is a hell of a lot easier to manage resources than it is to manage (highly individual) people.
In fact, these managers understood that their approach is likely more expensive in the long run; there are lots of hidden costs in the reduced quality of the work, in talent management (staff turnover and getting the replacement hires up to speed, something I see a lot of in outsourcing partners), loss of agility and the ability to react to changing circumstances... but despite all that, they still prefer the predictable way of doing things.
It's scary because there's a lack of due process. All gov't bodies should be subject to this, and that is mostly the case. The police cannot enter your house without a warrant (b.t.w. in NL that sadly is no longer the case), and obtaining evidence, statements and confessions is all subject to certain rules (no torture or duress, lawyer must be present, etc) or the evidence will not be admissible in court. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
But the IRS play by different rules. I doubt very much that this stolen data would be admissible in normal criminal or even civil proceedings, even when obtained "legally" from another agency who bought it from the source. They can obtain information from *any* source, including anonymous tips, simply increase your estimated income and holdings by any amount they see fit, and slap you with a higher tax and fine. The burden of proof is on your shoulders to discount whatever rumour they might have picked up. I've seen some ugly examples of this, and not all are about people hiding their money or criminals.
Not sure about this particular case, but not too long ago a Dutch judge ruled that Internal Revenue was allowed to use stolen data to go after people who had unreported savings in Swiss bank accounts. The data was stolen, and known to be stolen, but the judge reasoned that there was no problem since our IRS weren't buying the data from the thief directly, but from the German IRS who had obtained it from a Swiss whistleblower.
But that's the IRS we're talking about, and if you dig a little deeper, it is quite scary what powers they have in various countries. But for normal companies, using this data would be a big no-no under the kind of data protection and privacy acts we have around here.
Apple wasn't doing all that great when Jobs left it, and later on many people (including many MBA-haters as well as Jobs himself) realized that some MBA-type skills were missing at Apple's helm. The problem with MBA schools is that they teach you only one aspect of management: management / economic theory, in other words the science part, which is good and necessary. But they do not provide much equally essential experience, and do little to teach actual leadership. And that's why MBAs often do such a poor job of running companies and departments: they were taught only the science, and they think it's enough. But if you think you can run a multi billion dollar firm withou the science part, you're sorely mistaken. That is what Jobs found out the hard way.
Some AR-15 models can be converted to full "rock and roll" by inserting 2 bits of shaped sheet metal into the lower receiver. And AFAIK, just making those 2 bits is illegal in the US. (It's legal in Europe, but of course highly illegal to insert them into your weapon. I've been tempted but it's not worth my gun license)
Interestingly, you can (or could for a time) buy a legal version of these 2 parts called a Lightning Link. They were manufactured for a while and the legal ones carry a serial #; they got grandfathered into the rule against full auto guns. Since this thing gives you a legal (*in some states) full auto AR-15, they've sold for upwards of $10.000.
The article isn't important or even insightful. It's another lament about people using the internet in "non-approved" ways. Today's villain is the lolcat, apparently. It used to be people tweeting about what the dog is doing, or posting family pictures online, or blogging about what one had for dinner, or mailing each other jokes, or top-posting on Usenet, or whatever. It's all "junk" and yes, a lot of people are doing it. And in the mean time the rest of the Internet is moving along just fine. Nothing to see here, move along.
What a surprise: technology that enables us to create and enjoy wondrous works of art can and will also be used to produce lowest common denominator crap. Hell, even Gutenberg's printing press wasn't used at first to print new works, or even to make existing works (like the bible) available to the masses. It was used to mass-produce indulgences for the church to sell to sinners; the clergy couldn't hand-write the things fast enough to meet demand.
Odd, over here (the Netherlands) the opposite has happened, and DIY chains now sell more up-market fittings as well as the cheap stuff. With tools, it's the other way around: we now have a lot of cheap tools from China, of varying quality. And that's fine as well: power tools that used to be prohibitively expensive for the occasional user are now affordable. That Chinese drill motor with pneumatic hammer isn't going to be as nice and long-lasting as the one from DeWalt, but it's good enough for drilling a few holes to hang paintings or chisel old tiles off the bathroom wall, and it's only a hundred euros instead of 600 for a pro tool.
As for declining skills, I'd have to agree with the article's author. I think part of the problem is that being a craftsman isn't cool anymore... ok, perhaps it never really was cool, but at least good craftsmen got some respect, and it was a viable career choice for many. Nowadays, you can still make a decent living doing that sort of work, but if you enroll in trade school, people will think there's something wrong with you. The general sentiment seems to be that winners do knowledge work or at least get to boss other people around; if you actually work with your hands, you're a loser. And even trade school is changing to reflect the idea that everyone needs to be in "services", dropping classes that teach actual skill in favour of management crap or theoretical stuff, the idea being that everyone needs to be a knowledge worker to some degree.
That's the "Amercians may not know" mistake right there (and that goes for non-Americans as well, of course)
It's all fun and games today - we can drop our social networking sites or choose not to participate and it's no big deal.
Even if you drop all social media accounts and stop participating... your friends won't. They upload a few nice photos from the company picnic, upload them to Facebook / Google+, and obligingly tag all persons in those photos (including you). Now Zuck & Brinster have a name to go with your face, which they can apply to all subsequent photos with you in it.
One proposed solution is to buy the car but lease the batteries; you'll pay a monthly fee or perhaps a fee based on usage, and when the battery is at end-of-life, the company swaps it out and recycles it. This scheme would also enable battery swaps at gas stations: if you own the battery, you would not want your empty but brand new battery swapped with a crappy worn one. If you lease them however, it does not matter (other than that an older battery will give you somewhat reduced range). This would also be a strong driver towards standardisation of battery packs (with different cars requiring a different number of standard packs).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not even really rape; note that his so called crime only carries a crappy fine as punishment. Oh, and he isn't being charged either. The police just want to ask him some questions; something they normally do over the phone in cases like this, or perhaps send over some officers to the UK for an interview. Nothing that warrants the Interpol warrant (which was issued against the rules), and certainly nothing worth storming an embassy for.
Meh... "real" bikers lament the increased popularity of motorcycles, and old school scuba nuts must hate PADI for making the underwater world accessible to all. I suppose it's only natural that pilots want the skies to themselves. Get off my lawn, but in 3D.
Still, one would hope that flying car pilots will have to pass the same rigorous difficulty tests, or keep their wheels firmly on the ground. And I think many will be unable to pass such a test. I agree with the article, and my money says flying cars will happen not before autonomous flight (including standard protocols for flight direction) becomes practical.
Corporations undeniably have considerable power and influence, but that's a far cry from being the state's puppet masters. The problem is: on difficult issues like IP, which most voters are soft on, politicians are open to be swayed either way. By their advisers, who are most likely lobbyists for corporations. That is the big advantage they have over the general populace: not control over politicians; in this case merely having their ear is enough. The politicians do not understand the issue and are happy to be "properly" informed, and most voters do not give a damn.
In the USA, the situation is slightly worse perhaps: you guys are a nation of lawyers, or at least it is them who are in control. With the president reiterating that IP is the key to the future of American economics, and lawyers having a vested interest in endless IP-related litigation, you can forget about patent or copyright laws ever being reformed. That is, unless politicians and lawmakers with a conscience, and with a decent understanding of the issue, take office. Fat chance of that.
In the Netherlands, national politics is utterly boned. The largest parties are either socialists who stick to their ideology but unfortunately have the wrong one, and the liberals (= moderate right wing) who have a good ideology but seem to have forgotten it completely. I think my vote might go to the Pirate Party this time.
I've used a Communicator 9110 and played around with an E90 for a bit. Both, but the 9110 in particular, suffer from the same problem: they are designed as phones instead of pocket computers with a GSM chip.
That's one important difference between smart phones and feature phones that Nokia never seemed to understand: a smart phone is a pocket computer (call it an "organiser") which happens to have the ability to make calls too. A feature phone is a phone that has some extra apps bolted on. From a design perspective that is an important distinction, and it's the reason why so many Nokia smart phones sucked from a usability point of view, even though they had a decent hardware design.
As for the iPhone, I don't see why it shouldn't be classed as a smart phone, even though it's more locked down. A friend who enjoyed using an iPhone for some years before making the switch to Android joked: "The advantage of Android is that you can customize the whole phone to your liking, including the desktop, the keyboard, etc. The disadvantage is that you have to". Apple locks down the UI, but that default UI has proven to work well for many people. If it doesn't for you, get a 'Droid.
I also recommend an ace team of lawyers, to defend yourself against other megacorps who do not appreciate new competition. Megacorporations like Apple...
So... HBO stands to make more from airing the show on the networks, than they ever could garner from selling the show directly to a much larger audience. Interesting, I had no idea.... and I wonder why.
Is it because of the ads? Is it the g^@-damn ads again? Pardon my French, but the only thing that is starting to annoy me more than the ads themselves is the way whole economic models begin to depend on them. The same thing that gives a silly free social network site a 100 billion dollar price tag... perhaps that is the answer to HBO's revenue as well. Apparently, ads are worth a lot of money. Sure, in many cases, ads pay our way (or part of it). But I am afraid that the tremendous value of these ads will continue the drive we've been seeing for the past decades: more and more of them. See the second installment of Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror" to see what ads and a "mediated" society can become.
Agreed, and I certainly was not suggesting that Facebook should change their model; they can do whatever they feel best serves their interest. But if popular "amateur" producers of content decide to go elsewhere rather than pay FB to make sure they reach their following, then I expect this policy to hurt FB's bottom line rather than help it, since these bloggers will take their ad impressions with them.
For firms, it might not be that much of an issue? But what about people who do what they do for fun rather than profit, like popular bloggers? "Pay or your followers may miss your post" sucks for those people. Perhaps FB ran out of ideas to monetize, and use this to shift the burden of coming up with a good way to make money for this kind of stuff to its more popular members.
No, it’s a combination of tech and humans. The problem is that the old reactors rely far too much on humans to keep things safe, and even with 100% competent and scrupulous people, they could be considered too dangerous. Newer reactor designs reduce the chance of a mishap when the reactor staff screws up, and also reduce the effects of such mishaps. The idea that technology can make these things 100% foolproof is delusional. But by the same token, dismissing nuclear power (or worse: arguing against improving reactor designs) because our perception of technology as the problem is false, amounts to dangerous intellectual laziness. Say what you will about technology not being the problem, but it can provide solutions and make things safer.
If a nuclear plant could be made as safe* as a gas fired plant, would we worry as much about sloppy procedures, incompetent staff and corner-cutting management? No, and that should be our goal. Which, by the way, might be attainable.
*) in terms of both the chance of accidents happening and the effects of those accidents
Pointing out flaws in a sucky GUI* isn't hard. What is hard is coming up wih a good one yourself. That is what makes a UI expert.
*) or are we supposed to call it UIX these days?
IIRC, the evidence was rejected because it was submitted after the deadline has passed. That may sound petty, but the other side in this case should have a chance to examine the evidence and prepare a response. That's how these things work, and should work.
If you use your tablet as a screen together with a keyboard, you will want a mouse as well (or perhaps a separate touch tablet). Having to reach over your keyboard for any mousey action (moving the cursor, menus, etc) gets tiring real soon. I found the same when I tried typing for an extended period of time on an iPad + bluetooth keyboard.
Then again, your question is a good one in light of the remark from the article. That mouse looks insanely ill-suited for extended work, and if you're only using the tablet for short periods of time, the touch screen and virtual leyboard should work well enough.
It’s not only about the money; I recently had an interesting discussion on this topic with a few “management by the numbers” suits of a large company. They do see the downside of increased specialization, compartmentalization and commoditization in IT jobs, combined with an overload of process and management. They understand this has a profound impact on speed, quality, job satisfaction and especially agility and the capability to innovate, but besides a cost reduction it brings something else to the table: predictability. In other words: a standard team of corporate IT drones may deliver “X” with good-enough quality, in 8-10 weeks, for $150k. A small, agile team of motivated coders can deliver “X” with great quality, in 5-12 weeks, for $140-170k (depending). The small team might seem the better pick but the suits prefer the more predictable standard team. Easier to plan, to budget for, to outsource, and it is a hell of a lot easier to manage resources than it is to manage (highly individual) people.
In fact, these managers understood that their approach is likely more expensive in the long run; there are lots of hidden costs in the reduced quality of the work, in talent management (staff turnover and getting the replacement hires up to speed, something I see a lot of in outsourcing partners), loss of agility and the ability to react to changing circumstances... but despite all that, they still prefer the predictable way of doing things.
It's scary because there's a lack of due process. All gov't bodies should be subject to this, and that is mostly the case. The police cannot enter your house without a warrant (b.t.w. in NL that sadly is no longer the case), and obtaining evidence, statements and confessions is all subject to certain rules (no torture or duress, lawyer must be present, etc) or the evidence will not be admissible in court. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
But the IRS play by different rules. I doubt very much that this stolen data would be admissible in normal criminal or even civil proceedings, even when obtained "legally" from another agency who bought it from the source. They can obtain information from *any* source, including anonymous tips, simply increase your estimated income and holdings by any amount they see fit, and slap you with a higher tax and fine. The burden of proof is on your shoulders to discount whatever rumour they might have picked up. I've seen some ugly examples of this, and not all are about people hiding their money or criminals.
Not sure about this particular case, but not too long ago a Dutch judge ruled that Internal Revenue was allowed to use stolen data to go after people who had unreported savings in Swiss bank accounts. The data was stolen, and known to be stolen, but the judge reasoned that there was no problem since our IRS weren't buying the data from the thief directly, but from the German IRS who had obtained it from a Swiss whistleblower.
But that's the IRS we're talking about, and if you dig a little deeper, it is quite scary what powers they have in various countries. But for normal companies, using this data would be a big no-no under the kind of data protection and privacy acts we have around here.
Apple wasn't doing all that great when Jobs left it, and later on many people (including many MBA-haters as well as Jobs himself) realized that some MBA-type skills were missing at Apple's helm. The problem with MBA schools is that they teach you only one aspect of management: management / economic theory, in other words the science part, which is good and necessary. But they do not provide much equally essential experience, and do little to teach actual leadership. And that's why MBAs often do such a poor job of running companies and departments: they were taught only the science, and they think it's enough. But if you think you can run a multi billion dollar firm withou the science part, you're sorely mistaken. That is what Jobs found out the hard way.
Some AR-15 models can be converted to full "rock and roll" by inserting 2 bits of shaped sheet metal into the lower receiver. And AFAIK, just making those 2 bits is illegal in the US. (It's legal in Europe, but of course highly illegal to insert them into your weapon. I've been tempted but it's not worth my gun license)
Interestingly, you can (or could for a time) buy a legal version of these 2 parts called a Lightning Link. They were manufactured for a while and the legal ones carry a serial #; they got grandfathered into the rule against full auto guns. Since this thing gives you a legal (*in some states) full auto AR-15, they've sold for upwards of $10.000.
The article isn't important or even insightful. It's another lament about people using the internet in "non-approved" ways. Today's villain is the lolcat, apparently. It used to be people tweeting about what the dog is doing, or posting family pictures online, or blogging about what one had for dinner, or mailing each other jokes, or top-posting on Usenet, or whatever. It's all "junk" and yes, a lot of people are doing it. And in the mean time the rest of the Internet is moving along just fine. Nothing to see here, move along.
What a surprise: technology that enables us to create and enjoy wondrous works of art can and will also be used to produce lowest common denominator crap. Hell, even Gutenberg's printing press wasn't used at first to print new works, or even to make existing works (like the bible) available to the masses. It was used to mass-produce indulgences for the church to sell to sinners; the clergy couldn't hand-write the things fast enough to meet demand.
Odd, over here (the Netherlands) the opposite has happened, and DIY chains now sell more up-market fittings as well as the cheap stuff. With tools, it's the other way around: we now have a lot of cheap tools from China, of varying quality. And that's fine as well: power tools that used to be prohibitively expensive for the occasional user are now affordable. That Chinese drill motor with pneumatic hammer isn't going to be as nice and long-lasting as the one from DeWalt, but it's good enough for drilling a few holes to hang paintings or chisel old tiles off the bathroom wall, and it's only a hundred euros instead of 600 for a pro tool.
As for declining skills, I'd have to agree with the article's author. I think part of the problem is that being a craftsman isn't cool anymore... ok, perhaps it never really was cool, but at least good craftsmen got some respect, and it was a viable career choice for many. Nowadays, you can still make a decent living doing that sort of work, but if you enroll in trade school, people will think there's something wrong with you. The general sentiment seems to be that winners do knowledge work or at least get to boss other people around; if you actually work with your hands, you're a loser. And even trade school is changing to reflect the idea that everyone needs to be in "services", dropping classes that teach actual skill in favour of management crap or theoretical stuff, the idea being that everyone needs to be a knowledge worker to some degree.
Did I see a PERIOD there you psychopath stop Off to the happy home with you stop That is if the FBI do not come calling first stop
It's all fun and games today - we can drop our social networking sites or choose not to participate and it's no big deal.
Even if you drop all social media accounts and stop participating... your friends won't. They upload a few nice photos from the company picnic, upload them to Facebook / Google+, and obligingly tag all persons in those photos (including you). Now Zuck & Brinster have a name to go with your face, which they can apply to all subsequent photos with you in it.
To paraphrase the old saying: democracy sucks, but it beats every other system we've tried.
Hamlin says Facebook won't collect any of the personal information with which it interacts
Riiiight
One proposed solution is to buy the car but lease the batteries; you'll pay a monthly fee or perhaps a fee based on usage, and when the battery is at end-of-life, the company swaps it out and recycles it. This scheme would also enable battery swaps at gas stations: if you own the battery, you would not want your empty but brand new battery swapped with a crappy worn one. If you lease them however, it does not matter (other than that an older battery will give you somewhat reduced range). This would also be a strong driver towards standardisation of battery packs (with different cars requiring a different number of standard packs).