This is a perfect example of how the free market system fails the working class.
If there is a shortage of nursing staff the solution should be to raise the incentive to be a nurse. That incentive is pay and benefits. If the industry needs more nurses it either needs to fragment the job description so that the qualified nurses can concentrate on skilled tasks while orderlies and candy stripers handle lesser tasks OR it needs to make nursing a more attractive profession.
Instead, somehow, they have managed to convince the employees to sign on to this overtime for less plan that deprives the working class of its free time and in fact devalues it. Eventually these people will ahev to pick between overtime at the hospital or part time work at Taco Bell.
Just to review...in a free market economy a scarce commodity should be worth more. This is an example of the system breaking where a scarce commodity is being devalued, thereby reducing anyone's desire to be a nurse.
"Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Oh workers can you stand it?
Oh tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
or will you be a man?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
unless we organize.
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?"
How many people actually looked at your entries before accepting these facts?
Also, if you dont know, you look it up. If I check encyclopedia britannica for info it's cause I dont know the answer. Most people looking for info are not in a position to rate the quality of the answer. And most people who have the answers are not going to go looking for the fun of fact checking.
You are right though. The system does seem to have some fatal flaws and might need some rethinking.
Keep in mind though that many "authoritative sources" often present myths as fact. I can think of three. 1)The NYT claiming that rockets cant work in space 2)History books claiming that the Civil War was fought over slavery and 3)Newton getting hit in the head with an apple.
Why do we insist on using voting computers which are reprogrammable. These are all Von Neumann architecture machines. As computer scientists we should be able to find a more appropriate architecture for voting. Something where the code is not alterable, something where the counts are not chanegable.
Think about it. And if you dont understand the question then learn about computing architecture. There are computers other than the multi purpose kind. They tend to be single purpose and far more efficient at their designed jobs.
Can anyone explain to me why all the e-voting solutions are based on the Von Neumann architecture? This architecture is specifies reusable multi purpose computers. We could simply enough increase the security of voting machines if we built a computing solution specifically for the task, one whose logic could be implemented at the board level, one whose tallying would not be so dependent on easily modified and rewriteable memory.
I'm still getting into Linux and BSD, running machines and making the switch. What I'm wondering is if and when will we see distros that feature kernel 2.6 and SCO-free libraries.
I know of one book that teaches C++ as it teaches how to write an implementation of mastermind.
The book is C++ from Scratch by Jesse Liberty. ISBN 0-7897-2079-5
It has it's faults, the primary one being that the code in the book is for VC++ 6. On the disk they supply the Bloodshed Dev-C++ compiler and code for that compiler (that does not seem to compile).
I've been lurking in the Linux community for a while, occasionally getting the wherewithal to try a linux install. I've had some success, my main problem has been the monitor configurations.
Apparently, Lindows is making "Linux for Newbs" wich is a great thing. I would hate to throw a stumbling block in their way. Here's the question.
Being a linux distro, and therefore under the GPL, doesnt Lindows have a contractual obligation to release their OS as a free download? Is free downloading of distros legally required or is it just customary?
Again, hats off to lindows for what they are trying....but what of the GPL?
I dont know for SURE if it's open source, and it might not be non-geek, but I think it's a good idea to spare 10-15 megas for a good beginners c++ compiler. You can get it here, just follow the links. Good for students, hobbyists, and maybe quake modders too!
"Under section 9a of the Victorian Summary Offences Act (1966), 'a person must not gain access to, or enter, a computer system or part of a computer system without lawful authority to do so'. The penalty if convicted is up to six months' jail."
and
"...if Californian Democrat congressman Howard Berman's copyright protection bill, which allows cracking of computers, passes into law."
Well, it seems to me that if the American bill does become a law then it will not be a long journey to find sympathy among the Australian government. Keep in mind that Australia and the US have good relations, particularly when it comes to law enforcement. The pasing of this law by the American Government may be all the "lawful authority" that the Australians require.
The important thing is to write your congressman and senators, to anyone you can. Point out that this law would be like allowing business owners to booby-trap their places of business. It would also open a loophole by which ANY vicious hacker would gain the "right" to viciously hack, simply by releasing an album on his own label and then "finding" mp3's being shared on peer-to-peer.
Dr. Podkletnov and his associate G. modanese used to maintain a website at Gravity.org. That website has since disappeared, for several months now.
Folks, I know these claims seem outrageous but there is an interesting point here. IF there is grand unified Theory that means there will be a relationship between GRavity and Electromagnetism. AND there s a loophole in electromagnetism provided by the zero resistance of a superconductor.
V=I*R (ohms law)
Well...Voltage in a superconductor goes to zero, because resistance is at zero? So I can ramp up power to an infinite degree? And the Meissner effect (the anti magnetism around the superconductor) already demonstrates peculiar properties.
Look folks, we need this examined carefully and repeatedly until we understand it. This may be one of the experimental proofs of a GUT that we have been looking for. It may point us to an electro-magnetic-gravity theory.
Wish that website were still up...
Hmm, not one of the more popular distros, eh? I wonder if they ever have problems with clogged FTP servers. Though I think TurboLinux came with my q3 for Linux...not sure though. Might have been with the Linksys router.
Hey, isnt it inevitable that some distros will go the way of the the dodo? I cannot think of anyone who runs turbolinux either, and in fact, I rarely se it mentioned on the web at the various websites.
I guess the real question is, what is the business model going to be for a distro company that wants to cash out going to be? Will TurboLinux be able to sell their users to Red Hat?
There is something about the inherent contradiction of making a moie about a hoax like crop circles, then creating crop circles for the movie, and claiming that the movie imitates reality that irritates me.
Any chance that M. Night Shyamalan's story is about a farmer getting hoaxed by drunken unemployed locals with a 1x4 and some rope?
Gah, of course, I have not seen the movie yet, so I'm basically trolling, but this seems like a poor cousin of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and frankly, seems like the kind of semi-SF hollywood does not need to be making.
Sprint/Wordlcom going bankrupt cant really be blamed on the decreasing price of bandwidth. All they had to do to manage prices correctly was to limit their creative bookkeeping.
See, you cant run a business if you're pretending everything is a-okay. If you're losing money and covering it up then you cant properly set prices.
IT'S A FEEDBACK PROBLEM.
Part of the solution is to stop spending millions on excutive salary. But even more of the solution lies in mking sure that you sell the bandwidth for an appropriate price so you can pay the bills.
"Any time you lower a price point you always see a broadening of the audience that is probable to buy it," Kelly said.
This is the core of this study. This is what it proves.
Macs tend to be more expensive and less...easy to buy for. I am not at all surprised that mac users are more likely to buy stuff on line, that's probably the easiest way to find software and peripherals for a Macintosh.
Something that this article does not mention is that Macs may get better and longer support from Apple so that the Mac user might still be using a machine when it's x86 counterpart has long since become a paperweight. This happens due to any number of reasons.
Simple fact is that there are fewer Mac owners out there, and those who buy Macs are not likely to do it as an uniformed decision. This in turn would tend to indicate a more educated clientele. Combine this with the price point issue, the availability issue, the manufacturer's support issue, and the study makes sense.
If Mac users ARE more educated it is just a function of money.
The other hing that is hapening is what Gaytes always does. He sees the popular apps out there and tries to integrate them into his OS. He's trying to make filesharing easier and more trackable. Sounds very P2P to me.
He also looked and said "hmmm, once upon a time computers replaced the steno pool, now maybe they can replace the recptionist." Now when you call someone you'll have to answer a questionarre before you can speak to them. If you're all connected properly you'll just click a button on your contact list and it will schedule a meeting with a group of people for you. Which is functionality that exists in Lotus Notes.
He's gonna revamp the registry. Bloat it out some so now as well as keeping track of config settings and security info it wll also have info on EVERY document and media file in your computer. After that it'll simply be a matter of adding fields to the database structure to include prefrences and a mechanism to generate frequency of use stats. And it will all be searchable, taking up memory and processor resorces. Anyone remember quickstart?
I wonder if he'll be adding in voice recognition? Seems important at this point. And handwriting recognition.
He's approaching the same problems again, just adding a new generation of development to them. Sure, I hope it works, but I bet that like all MS products he will trade processing power, speed, memory, and storage for gains in functionality while ignoring user-friendliness.
I am really wondering if the set of hardware that Longhorn will run on is going to become even smaller. Will it be feasible to compare Macs and Windows machines on an even basis? Will Open Source stay competitive in the face of increased app;lication/OS integration?
Album sales are not a matter of profit for artists as very little of the money from the sale of the album actually filter through to the artist.
The only problem that decreased album sales causes is that the album sales metric becomes less useful, and of course the industry wont sign artists who dont sell albums.
Interestingly though, they could just log on to various filesharing services and SEE how many copies of a song are on line and apply a nielsen-ratings style multiple to the result. This would give them a pretty good idea of the popularity of the song.
Of course, they still would have the problem of not actually selling albums. but I dont mind that so much. It just means fewer stores in the mall, and one less industry devoted to delivering plastic to the masses.
This isnt a PC BIOS folks. It's intended as an BIOS/OS for web enabled devices.
From the website: Phoenix FirstView Connect software delivers an easy-to-implement, low cost/ high value architecture that supports Internet TV, interactive screen phones, game consoles, customizable set-top devices, handheld appliances, and more
Of course, the neat part about it is that it is based on linux and all fits on a 16MB flash memory...maybe someone can create a family of web enabled devices where you carry your flash memory card to the device, slide it in and run the device with your personal prefs taken from the card.
I'm surprised this is even a question....
on
Ethical Obligations
·
· Score: 1
Actually, on second thought, I'm not surprised.
If I were to have a list of credit card numbers on my computer and found out someone stole it, then covered up the theft I would be held responsible in civil court, and perhaps I would be tried as an accessory after the fact in criminal court. Corporations manage to dodge criminal charges on a regular basis.
Ethically, yes, the company has a responsibility to inform their customers of the lost information. This doesnt mean that they have to go to CNN and post it in the news. It should be done discreetly, with a list of affected customers being generated from another source. Do it by comparing diffrences in lists. Of course, at that point the company should also start working on security and figuring out how to prevent these problems.
Here is the tricky part. And the part that is true ethical question. As a customer, what do you do once you've been told that your info has been ripped? I recommend quietly cancelling your credit card and allowing the authorities a chance to track future purchases. Of course, you cant go around warning people not to use the compromised service, because that would be a security breach. And therein lies the rub.
The question is not "Should the company inform the consumer." Of course they should. They may be legally obligated to. The question is do we warn others about unsecure companies and prevent future problems, or do we join the law enforcement effort by keeping quiet and co-operating with the authorities?
As many people have pointed out 1)AoTC opened on fewer screens and runs longer. So, it could not have POSSIBLY grossed as much in it's first weekend. For what it's worth, both films were sold out in the Hudson Valley in New York State on the first weekend.
2)How many seats are sold to repeat viewers? I ask this because it is only in a repeat viewing that movie quality can count. Otherwise you are seeing it cold.
3)Also, vis a vis quality, this is the FIFTH Star Wars movie. Yes, maybe it could be better, but I doubt Spider-Man has the legs to go for a fifth or sixth incarnation. Look at how bad the Superman and Batman series became after a while.
4)This is a weak economy. People might not have the bucks it takes to go see EVERY movie they want EVERY time they want.
5)Where is the most significant stat? I want to see total tickets sold divided by number of showings. For all i know AoTC could have outgrossed spidey in two days if it had been on more screens.
6) Lucas has a much bigger legacy to support. What came before in the Spider-Man legacy? Comic books? A newspaper comic strip? Animated television series? A crappy live action TV series? I was frankly MUCH more eager to see what a big budget Spidey flick had to offer to that myth. With Star Wars we're lucky that we got a movie that surpassed Ep1 and Ep6 in quality.
7)My little Spider-Man rant here....the combat looked terrible! The fistfights were poorly choreographed, and the best action in the movie was all CG. Willem DaFoe does turn in a great performance though.
SIGH! In closing, can we please stop all the fussin' and a-feudin'? I think it'll be really funny if MIB2 or, even a bigger underdog, if Star Trek X kicks both their asses.
I was going to comment wihtout reading it, then i realoized how ignorant that would be. Ignorance is bliss.
The author of the article blithely rants on and on and on about the invention of television as the death of the lone inventor. Then he discusses the nature of complex inventions where several simple devices converge to make a more complex one. And all the while he forgets about Edison.
Let me first talk about Edison here. Edison is a prime example of the death of the "lone inventor." We all know he had a workshop of engineers working for him, developing vacuum tubes and sealing processes, searching for filaments for the lightbulb, designing movie projectiors, cameras, film, and emulsions. Edison did a lot but he did it in such a way as to uindustrialize the process of invention and shape it into engineering.
What about Steve Wozniack? The INDIVIDUAL who sat down and soldered together the Apple computer. Yes, I know he didnt build the first hobbyists computer, but he _arguably_ built the first PERSONAL Computer. Marketed it. And did it without causing legal patent problems, did it so that the licensing was all clear and above board.
There are inventions developed by individuals every day. It is true that marketing and manufacturing requires more money than the average person has. Look around, there are tool maufacturing companies that make submission forms available in machine shops in case you have a good idea that no one else has patented.
Here is the problem with this article. The author has never INVENTED. He does not realize what the difference is between invetion and marketing/manufacturing. He does not realize that some patents are sold or licensed for other puposes. The author has a romantic notion of what an inventor is; a tall, thin, blue eyed, wispy haired dreamer. Any African-American reading this should be pissed off, George Washington Carver looked nothing like that.
In fact, the author's entire article is based on the romantic ideal. The idea that the invention of television is a turning point of multiple dimensions, that it heralded the end of the depression, the start of a new form of communication, and the death of individual invention.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance there is a difference illustrated between romantic and classical thought. A classical thinker sees the parts, the forest for the trees. A romantic thinker sees the forest as a whole, for the magnificence of the forest. This article is an example of romantic thought applied to a classical discipline.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a perfect example of how the free market system fails the working class.
If there is a shortage of nursing staff the solution should be to raise the incentive to be a nurse. That incentive is pay and benefits. If the industry needs more nurses it either needs to fragment the job description so that the qualified nurses can concentrate on skilled tasks while orderlies and candy stripers handle lesser tasks OR it needs to make nursing a more attractive profession.
Instead, somehow, they have managed to convince the employees to sign on to this overtime for less plan that deprives the working class of its free time and in fact devalues it. Eventually these people will ahev to pick between overtime at the hospital or part time work at Taco Bell.
Just to review...in a free market economy a scarce commodity should be worth more. This is an example of the system breaking where a scarce commodity is being devalued, thereby reducing anyone's desire to be a nurse.
"Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Oh workers can you stand it?
Oh tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
or will you be a man?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
unless we organize.
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on boys?
Which side are you on?"
We just need the government to invest the money in the infrastructure and research to make this happen people.
I wonder which presidential candidate is more likely to spend money on public works and not on trying to maintain our oil interests....
How many people actually looked at your entries before accepting these facts?
Also, if you dont know, you look it up. If I check encyclopedia britannica for info it's cause I dont know the answer. Most people looking for info are not in a position to rate the quality of the answer. And most people who have the answers are not going to go looking for the fun of fact checking.
You are right though. The system does seem to have some fatal flaws and might need some rethinking.
Keep in mind though that many "authoritative sources" often present myths as fact. I can think of three.
1)The NYT claiming that rockets cant work in space
2)History books claiming that the Civil War was fought over slavery
and
3)Newton getting hit in the head with an apple.
I asked this before and am going to ask again.
Why do we insist on using voting computers which are reprogrammable. These are all Von Neumann architecture machines. As computer scientists we should be able to find a more appropriate architecture for voting. Something where the code is not alterable, something where the counts are not chanegable.
Think about it. And if you dont understand the question then learn about computing architecture. There are computers other than the multi purpose kind. They tend to be single purpose and far more efficient at their designed jobs.
Can anyone explain to me why all the e-voting solutions are based on the Von Neumann architecture? This architecture is specifies reusable multi purpose computers. We could simply enough increase the security of voting machines if we built a computing solution specifically for the task, one whose logic could be implemented at the board level, one whose tallying would not be so dependent on easily modified and rewriteable memory.
I'm still getting into Linux and BSD, running machines and making the switch. What I'm wondering is if and when will we see distros that feature kernel 2.6 and SCO-free libraries.
BTW, Is BSD suceptible to this SCO complaint?
The book is C++ from Scratch by Jesse Liberty. ISBN 0-7897-2079-5
It has it's faults, the primary one being that the code in the book is for VC++ 6. On the disk they supply the Bloodshed Dev-C++ compiler and code for that compiler (that does not seem to compile).
Apparently the book is out of print.
In fact, this was a major spoiler when the news first came out because it revealed that the VR in the matrix was not dettroyed.
OK everyone, there is a science of psychohistory. It already exists. Check out www.psychohistory.com.
Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, were the trinity of SF when I was a kid. The genre offers too much to be limited in thi way.
For really great SF look to Gibson, Stephenson, Sterling, Vonnegut...
Dont forget to read mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
The list of great SF goes on and on, basically because stories of the future answer or us the question "where are we going?"
...top secret weapons labratories?
Physicist #1: Oh man, this Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray bottle would make a killer bong!
Physicist #2: Ah, they shatter on the drill press, I tried it last week.
Physicist #3: (eyes red and bleary)Hey, what's wrong with the microwave? I wanna make this popcorn.
Physicist #1 & #2 (in harmony):Microwave?
I've been lurking in the Linux community for a while, occasionally getting the wherewithal to try a linux install. I've had some success, my main problem has been the monitor configurations. Apparently, Lindows is making "Linux for Newbs" wich is a great thing. I would hate to throw a stumbling block in their way. Here's the question. Being a linux distro, and therefore under the GPL, doesnt Lindows have a contractual obligation to release their OS as a free download? Is free downloading of distros legally required or is it just customary? Again, hats off to lindows for what they are trying....but what of the GPL?
I dont know for SURE if it's open source, and it might not be non-geek, but I think it's a good idea to spare 10-15 megas for a good beginners c++ compiler. You can get it here, just follow the links. Good for students, hobbyists, and maybe quake modders too!
"Under section 9a of the Victorian Summary Offences Act (1966), 'a person must not gain access to, or enter, a computer system or part of a computer system without lawful authority to do so'. The penalty if convicted is up to six months' jail."
and"...if Californian Democrat congressman Howard Berman's copyright protection bill, which allows cracking of computers, passes into law."
Well, it seems to me that if the American bill does become a law then it will not be a long journey to find sympathy among the Australian government. Keep in mind that Australia and the US have good relations, particularly when it comes to law enforcement. The pasing of this law by the American Government may be all the "lawful authority" that the Australians require. The important thing is to write your congressman and senators, to anyone you can. Point out that this law would be like allowing business owners to booby-trap their places of business. It would also open a loophole by which ANY vicious hacker would gain the "right" to viciously hack, simply by releasing an album on his own label and then "finding" mp3's being shared on peer-to-peer.
Dr. Podkletnov and his associate G. modanese used to maintain a website at Gravity.org. That website has since disappeared, for several months now. Folks, I know these claims seem outrageous but there is an interesting point here. IF there is grand unified Theory that means there will be a relationship between GRavity and Electromagnetism. AND there s a loophole in electromagnetism provided by the zero resistance of a superconductor. V=I*R (ohms law) Well...Voltage in a superconductor goes to zero, because resistance is at zero? So I can ramp up power to an infinite degree? And the Meissner effect (the anti magnetism around the superconductor) already demonstrates peculiar properties. Look folks, we need this examined carefully and repeatedly until we understand it. This may be one of the experimental proofs of a GUT that we have been looking for. It may point us to an electro-magnetic-gravity theory. Wish that website were still up...
Hey, isnt it inevitable that some distros will go the way of the the dodo? I cannot think of anyone who runs turbolinux either, and in fact, I rarely se it mentioned on the web at the various websites.
I guess the real question is, what is the business model going to be for a distro company that wants to cash out going to be? Will TurboLinux be able to sell their users to Red Hat?
Any chance that M. Night Shyamalan's story is about a farmer getting hoaxed by drunken unemployed locals with a 1x4 and some rope?
Gah, of course, I have not seen the movie yet, so I'm basically trolling, but this seems like a poor cousin of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and frankly, seems like the kind of semi-SF hollywood does not need to be making.
See, you cant run a business if you're pretending everything is a-okay. If you're losing money and covering it up then you cant properly set prices.
IT'S A FEEDBACK PROBLEM.
Part of the solution is to stop spending millions on excutive salary. But even more of the solution lies in mking sure that you sell the bandwidth for an appropriate price so you can pay the bills.
This is the core of this study. This is what it proves.
Macs tend to be more expensive and less...easy to buy for. I am not at all surprised that mac users are more likely to buy stuff on line, that's probably the easiest way to find software and peripherals for a Macintosh.
Something that this article does not mention is that Macs may get better and longer support from Apple so that the Mac user might still be using a machine when it's x86 counterpart has long since become a paperweight. This happens due to any number of reasons.
Simple fact is that there are fewer Mac owners out there, and those who buy Macs are not likely to do it as an uniformed decision. This in turn would tend to indicate a more educated clientele. Combine this with the price point issue, the availability issue, the manufacturer's support issue, and the study makes sense.
If Mac users ARE more educated it is just a function of money.
Someone said DRM, and I am inclined to agree.
The other hing that is hapening is what Gaytes always does. He sees the popular apps out there and tries to integrate them into his OS. He's trying to make filesharing easier and more trackable. Sounds very P2P to me.
He also looked and said "hmmm, once upon a time computers replaced the steno pool, now maybe they can replace the recptionist." Now when you call someone you'll have to answer a questionarre before you can speak to them. If you're all connected properly you'll just click a button on your contact list and it will schedule a meeting with a group of people for you. Which is functionality that exists in Lotus Notes.
He's gonna revamp the registry. Bloat it out some so now as well as keeping track of config settings and security info it wll also have info on EVERY document and media file in your computer. After that it'll simply be a matter of adding fields to the database structure to include prefrences and a mechanism to generate frequency of use stats. And it will all be searchable, taking up memory and processor resorces. Anyone remember quickstart?
I wonder if he'll be adding in voice recognition? Seems important at this point. And handwriting recognition.
He's approaching the same problems again, just adding a new generation of development to them. Sure, I hope it works, but I bet that like all MS products he will trade processing power, speed, memory, and storage for gains in functionality while ignoring user-friendliness.
I am really wondering if the set of hardware that Longhorn will run on is going to become even smaller. Will it be feasible to compare Macs and Windows machines on an even basis? Will Open Source stay competitive in the face of increased app;lication/OS integration?
my $.02
Album sales are not a matter of profit for artists as very little of the money from the sale of the album actually filter through to the artist. The only problem that decreased album sales causes is that the album sales metric becomes less useful, and of course the industry wont sign artists who dont sell albums. Interestingly though, they could just log on to various filesharing services and SEE how many copies of a song are on line and apply a nielsen-ratings style multiple to the result. This would give them a pretty good idea of the popularity of the song. Of course, they still would have the problem of not actually selling albums. but I dont mind that so much. It just means fewer stores in the mall, and one less industry devoted to delivering plastic to the masses.
This isnt a PC BIOS folks. It's intended as an BIOS/OS for web enabled devices.
From the website:
Phoenix FirstView Connect software delivers an easy-to-implement, low cost/ high value architecture that supports Internet TV, interactive screen phones, game consoles, customizable set-top devices, handheld appliances, and more
Of course, the neat part about it is that it is based on linux and all fits on a 16MB flash memory...maybe someone can create a family of web enabled devices where you carry your flash memory card to the device, slide it in and run the device with your personal prefs taken from the card.
Actually, on second thought, I'm not surprised.
If I were to have a list of credit card numbers on my computer and found out someone stole it, then covered up the theft I would be held responsible in civil court, and perhaps I would be tried as an accessory after the fact in criminal court. Corporations manage to dodge criminal charges on a regular basis.
Ethically, yes, the company has a responsibility to inform their customers of the lost information. This doesnt mean that they have to go to CNN and post it in the news. It should be done discreetly, with a list of affected customers being generated from another source. Do it by comparing diffrences in lists. Of course, at that point the company should also start working on security and figuring out how to prevent these problems.
Here is the tricky part. And the part that is true ethical question. As a customer, what do you do once you've been told that your info has been ripped? I recommend quietly cancelling your credit card and allowing the authorities a chance to track future purchases. Of course, you cant go around warning people not to use the compromised service, because that would be a security breach. And therein lies the rub.
The question is not "Should the company inform the consumer." Of course they should. They may be legally obligated to. The question is do we warn others about unsecure companies and prevent future problems, or do we join the law enforcement effort by keeping quiet and co-operating with the authorities?
As many people have pointed out
1)AoTC opened on fewer screens and runs longer. So, it could not have POSSIBLY grossed as much in it's first weekend. For what it's worth, both films were sold out in the Hudson Valley in New York State on the first weekend.
2)How many seats are sold to repeat viewers? I ask this because it is only in a repeat viewing that movie quality can count. Otherwise you are seeing it cold.
3)Also, vis a vis quality, this is the FIFTH Star Wars movie. Yes, maybe it could be better, but I doubt Spider-Man has the legs to go for a fifth or sixth incarnation. Look at how bad the Superman and Batman series became after a while.
4)This is a weak economy. People might not have the bucks it takes to go see EVERY movie they want EVERY time they want.
5)Where is the most significant stat? I want to see total tickets sold divided by number of showings. For all i know AoTC could have outgrossed spidey in two days if it had been on more screens.
6) Lucas has a much bigger legacy to support. What came before in the Spider-Man legacy? Comic books? A newspaper comic strip? Animated television series? A crappy live action TV series? I was frankly MUCH more eager to see what a big budget Spidey flick had to offer to that myth. With Star Wars we're lucky that we got a movie that surpassed Ep1 and Ep6 in quality.
7)My little Spider-Man rant here....the combat looked terrible! The fistfights were poorly choreographed, and the best action in the movie was all CG. Willem DaFoe does turn in a great performance though.
SIGH! In closing, can we please stop all the fussin' and a-feudin'? I think it'll be really funny if MIB2 or, even a bigger underdog, if Star Trek X kicks both their asses.
I was going to comment wihtout reading it, then i realoized how ignorant that would be. Ignorance is bliss.
The author of the article blithely rants on and on and on about the invention of television as the death of the lone inventor. Then he discusses the nature of complex inventions where several simple devices converge to make a more complex one. And all the while he forgets about Edison.
Let me first talk about Edison here. Edison is a prime example of the death of the "lone inventor." We all know he had a workshop of engineers working for him, developing vacuum tubes and sealing processes, searching for filaments for the lightbulb, designing movie projectiors, cameras, film, and emulsions. Edison did a lot but he did it in such a way as to uindustrialize the process of invention and shape it into engineering.
What about Steve Wozniack? The INDIVIDUAL who sat down and soldered together the Apple computer. Yes, I know he didnt build the first hobbyists computer, but he _arguably_ built the first PERSONAL Computer. Marketed it. And did it without causing legal patent problems, did it so that the licensing was all clear and above board.
There are inventions developed by individuals every day. It is true that marketing and manufacturing requires more money than the average person has. Look around, there are tool maufacturing companies that make submission forms available in machine shops in case you have a good idea that no one else has patented.
Here is the problem with this article. The author has never INVENTED. He does not realize what the difference is between invetion and marketing/manufacturing. He does not realize that some patents are sold or licensed for other puposes. The author has a romantic notion of what an inventor is; a tall, thin, blue eyed, wispy haired dreamer. Any African-American reading this should be pissed off, George Washington Carver looked nothing like that.
In fact, the author's entire article is based on the romantic ideal. The idea that the invention of television is a turning point of multiple dimensions, that it heralded the end of the depression, the start of a new form of communication, and the death of individual invention.
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance there is a difference illustrated between romantic and classical thought. A classical thinker sees the parts, the forest for the trees. A romantic thinker sees the forest as a whole, for the magnificence of the forest. This article is an example of romantic thought applied to a classical discipline.