This is such an obvious application of available tools that there's *no* way it wouldn't have been invented within minutes of the first phone with both an Internet connection and GPS location hitting the public, had the phone manufacturers themselves somehow not thought of it already. In 1998 it was also obvious, it just wasn't practical because those tools weren't widely available. Just because the patent is "first" doesn't mean it should be valid. One-click, anybody?
Meh. I don't have an iPhone but I somehow manage to not run any of Sprint's code on my phone. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on handsets that aren't slaves to the carrier.
Suppose the expected number of people to die from terrorism is 10, but the expected number of people to die from cancer is 3; you take the cancer and 7 more people (net) get to live. It's a no-brainer. But suppose because of your sloppy work the number of people who get cancer is actually *6*. That's still better than 10, but you don't get to pat yourself on the back for saving 4 people. On the contrary, you're responsible for 3 deaths that wouldn't have happened if you'd done your job properly.
See, this is actually a perfectly reasonable way to assess risk mitigation options.
Unfortunately, we don't know what the expected numbers of people to die from terrorism is, and we also don't know what the expected number of people to die from cancer is -- partially because the people in charge don't want to let anyone figure out how much radiation these things leak. And on top of that, the expected number of people to die from terrorism is likely a rounding error above 0 past 5 or 6 digits after the decimal point. You don't devise policy around one-in-a-million scenarios.
Point of information: Libertarianism actually says that corporations should be fairly compensating the citizens affected for their polluting activities. Just like I would have to pay you to dump a truckload of fill on your lawn -- and you set the price, PG&E should pay you for the air-full of CO_2 it dumps into everyone's air.
That sounds nice, except libertarians generally want the government to get out of regulating all of this stuff, which means that if a corporation starts polluting, the only way for citizens to get any compensation is in court. It may not be "might-makes-right" but it's definitely resources-makes-right, which boils down to the exact same thing. You'd need a massive overhaul of the legal system to make it possible for individual citizens to actually get any fair representation in court.
Facade? The source is out, how is that "keeping the facade of being open-source"? Do they have to gift wrap DVDs with a little red bow and distribute them from their Street View cars to anyone who asks before you'll count it as being bona fide open source?
What, pray tell, counts as "open source" in Bill's universe?
It's not ironic at all; because although the actions were risky there was no risk TO THOSE TAKING THEM. They were basically forced by the government into issuing loans no sane bank would make, told they would be backed up by the government...
No they weren't. If you're talking about the CRA, you're uninformed and just spouting a usual libertarian talking point. If you're not talking about the CRA, spell it out because you must have discovered something that was heretofore unknown. The government never made anybody make any loans to people that couldn't pay.
It is the majority. The people with the majority of the money have the majority of the power, which is how it's supposed to be, because money = speech, right?
Oh, you're not talking about that majority? My mistake.
but then, every time ANY thing went wrong, I'd be blamed for it, because I had gone off the "standard" and used "weird" software.
You say this as if it isn't the way things should be.
If you're not willing to accept responsibility for what you do with stuff, leave it alone and let people take care of it for you and don't whine about it.
Our financial problems are fundamentally due to size of government (spending) and not insufficient revenue (taxation).
Our financial problems are ENTIRELY due to poor resource allocation and have jack shit to do with the size of government.
We have enough food. People aren't starving in the streets (for the most part). We have enough homes. Relatively speaking, there aren't all that many homeless people, and in fact we're tearing down perfectly livable homes to increase the value of others. We generally have enough gas and electricity to go around -- we haven't had to deal with brownouts or sold out gas stations.
What we don't have is an even distribution of all this stuff, and that is largely because access to all of these things is tied to wealth, and wealth is grossly concentrated in a tiny percentage of the population. What we don't have is a system that makes it so that every person can participate in the economy on relatively equal footing.
Of course, I'm sure that even though I'm not advocating that we put everything in a big pile and divide it into 300 million equal shares you'll still see me as some sort of commie America and capitalism hating ultra liberal because I had the sheer audacity to suggest that not everybody has the same opportunity for advancement in this country, but whatever.
So let's not do anything because other people could do something first and save us the trouble?
Sorry for the reality check...you can now return to America-bashing and getting drunk in the dorm.
Sorry, I hold my country to higher standards than you do, apparently. I think we should be leaders and problem solvers. I guess you're content with just sitting on your ass and hoping things work out.
But hey, you get right on with your "sky is falling" thing, there. Keeps you distracted from things like your liberties and freedoms being taken away, government encouragement and sponsorship of religious delusions, overfishing, strip mining, etc.
See, *any one* of those things you mention is someone else's "sky is falling" scenario. There's no reason that someone can't acknowledge all of these problems simultaneously; there are 7 billion of us on the planet, surely we can tackle more than one thing at a time.
And also, unless you are a credible climate researcher, I'm going to have to say your opinion on the matter is probably not worth a whole hell of a lot.
When there's choice, the providers have to play fairly.
But millions of end-users making informed choices can't be better than whatever scheme a few central planners in DC dream up, right?
That would be awesome. Unfortunately, in the real world, we will never have choice in a natural monopoly situation, OR have end-users making informed choices in ANY situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Prior art would, but obviousness would not.
This is such an obvious application of available tools that there's *no* way it wouldn't have been invented within minutes of the first phone with both an Internet connection and GPS location hitting the public, had the phone manufacturers themselves somehow not thought of it already. In 1998 it was also obvious, it just wasn't practical because those tools weren't widely available. Just because the patent is "first" doesn't mean it should be valid. One-click, anybody?
--Jeremy
You don't even know what you're talking about; the Apple/Samsung suit was over the Galaxy Tab, not a phone.
--Jeremy
When design is all you have, I guess you'd better try to protect it in any way possible.
--Jeremy
No, but it sure does score some points in the "obviousness" column.
--Jeremy
such as keeping 3.x out of AOSP
Code's out; you can strike that one off your list.
--Jeremy
Meh. I don't have an iPhone but I somehow manage to not run any of Sprint's code on my phone. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on handsets that aren't slaves to the carrier.
--Jeremy
Suppose the expected number of people to die from terrorism is 10, but the expected number of people to die from cancer is 3; you take the cancer and 7 more people (net) get to live. It's a no-brainer. But suppose because of your sloppy work the number of people who get cancer is actually *6*. That's still better than 10, but you don't get to pat yourself on the back for saving 4 people. On the contrary, you're responsible for 3 deaths that wouldn't have happened if you'd done your job properly.
See, this is actually a perfectly reasonable way to assess risk mitigation options.
Unfortunately, we don't know what the expected numbers of people to die from terrorism is, and we also don't know what the expected number of people to die from cancer is -- partially because the people in charge don't want to let anyone figure out how much radiation these things leak. And on top of that, the expected number of people to die from terrorism is likely a rounding error above 0 past 5 or 6 digits after the decimal point. You don't devise policy around one-in-a-million scenarios.
--Jeremy
Just like gun control propaganda focuses on danger to children, when in reality swimming pools are responsible for more deaths.
And more people get struck by lightning per year than successfully ward off an attack using their guns.
What's your point?
--Jeremy
Point of information: Libertarianism actually says that corporations should be fairly compensating the citizens affected for their polluting activities. Just like I would have to pay you to dump a truckload of fill on your lawn -- and you set the price, PG&E should pay you for the air-full of CO_2 it dumps into everyone's air.
That sounds nice, except libertarians generally want the government to get out of regulating all of this stuff, which means that if a corporation starts polluting, the only way for citizens to get any compensation is in court. It may not be "might-makes-right" but it's definitely resources-makes-right, which boils down to the exact same thing. You'd need a massive overhaul of the legal system to make it possible for individual citizens to actually get any fair representation in court.
--Jeremy
Yeah, and that tablet just materialized out of thin air already at the location it would be used, and contains no heavy metals or any toxic chemicals.
--Jeremy
More than half of the Occupy protestors have full time jobs, and over 70% are employed part time.
But naturally, to people like yourself, they're just a bunch of lazy hipsters that need to go get a job.
--Jeremy
Facade? The source is out, how is that "keeping the facade of being open-source"? Do they have to gift wrap DVDs with a little red bow and distribute them from their Street View cars to anyone who asks before you'll count it as being bona fide open source?
What, pray tell, counts as "open source" in Bill's universe?
--Jeremy
Except hey, now you can! Honeycomb devices should support ICS.
--Jeremy
Surprised you have the balls to post in this thread, given how wrong your predictions that the ICS source would never be released turned out to be.
--Jeremy
It's not ironic at all; because although the actions were risky there was no risk TO THOSE TAKING THEM. They were basically forced by the government into issuing loans no sane bank would make, told they would be backed up by the government...
No they weren't. If you're talking about the CRA, you're uninformed and just spouting a usual libertarian talking point. If you're not talking about the CRA, spell it out because you must have discovered something that was heretofore unknown. The government never made anybody make any loans to people that couldn't pay.
--Jeremy
It is the majority. The people with the majority of the money have the majority of the power, which is how it's supposed to be, because money = speech, right?
Oh, you're not talking about that majority? My mistake.
--Jeremy
I can put *any condiments I want* on my cheeseburger. The only apps I'm officially allowed to put on an iPad are dictated by the Apple store.
Not a fair comparison; you can put any condiments you want on an iPad as well.
--Jeremy
but then, every time ANY thing went wrong, I'd be blamed for it, because I had gone off the "standard" and used "weird" software.
You say this as if it isn't the way things should be.
If you're not willing to accept responsibility for what you do with stuff, leave it alone and let people take care of it for you and don't whine about it.
--Jeremy
Some do. Who are you to tell them they can't?
--Jeremy
Our financial problems are fundamentally due to size of government (spending) and not insufficient revenue (taxation).
Our financial problems are ENTIRELY due to poor resource allocation and have jack shit to do with the size of government.
We have enough food. People aren't starving in the streets (for the most part). We have enough homes. Relatively speaking, there aren't all that many homeless people, and in fact we're tearing down perfectly livable homes to increase the value of others. We generally have enough gas and electricity to go around -- we haven't had to deal with brownouts or sold out gas stations.
What we don't have is an even distribution of all this stuff, and that is largely because access to all of these things is tied to wealth, and wealth is grossly concentrated in a tiny percentage of the population. What we don't have is a system that makes it so that every person can participate in the economy on relatively equal footing.
Of course, I'm sure that even though I'm not advocating that we put everything in a big pile and divide it into 300 million equal shares you'll still see me as some sort of commie America and capitalism hating ultra liberal because I had the sheer audacity to suggest that not everybody has the same opportunity for advancement in this country, but whatever.
--Jeremy
But you can't solve the tragedy of the commons that way.
You can't solve it by doing nothing, either.
--Jeremy
So let's not do anything because other people could do something first and save us the trouble?
Sorry for the reality check...you can now return to America-bashing and getting drunk in the dorm.
Sorry, I hold my country to higher standards than you do, apparently. I think we should be leaders and problem solvers. I guess you're content with just sitting on your ass and hoping things work out.
--Jeremy
But hey, you get right on with your "sky is falling" thing, there. Keeps you distracted from things like your liberties and freedoms being taken away, government encouragement and sponsorship of religious delusions, overfishing, strip mining, etc.
See, *any one* of those things you mention is someone else's "sky is falling" scenario. There's no reason that someone can't acknowledge all of these problems simultaneously; there are 7 billion of us on the planet, surely we can tackle more than one thing at a time.
And also, unless you are a credible climate researcher, I'm going to have to say your opinion on the matter is probably not worth a whole hell of a lot.
--Jeremy
Us: "Please stop polluting our water supply."
Corporations: "No. It hurts our bottom line."
Damn, I guess we're all out of options since government will just make things worse.
--Jeremy
When there's choice, the providers have to play fairly.
But millions of end-users making informed choices can't be better than whatever scheme a few central planners in DC dream up, right?
That would be awesome. Unfortunately, in the real world, we will never have choice in a natural monopoly situation, OR have end-users making informed choices in ANY situation.
--Jeremy