And again unlike creationism, intelligent design is not fundamentally at odds with evolution. They can coexist. Intelligent design is not really answering the same question as evolution. It goes beyond. It poses a possible answer (perhaps a convenient one, but find me another) to a series of questions which rise in most people's minds when they learn evolution.
Except that it implies an ordered direction to evolution, one that is controlled by some intelligence, to that end it is at odds with the general scientific principle of evolution. The differences between ID and creationism are a fig leaf. Fundementally they provide the same answer to the origin issue. That some super being, for which there is no testable evidence, that ordered things as they are.
The questions you ask are interesting, but I'd counter with a simple reversal of them. For each question you can ask why not. Its ok to not know, which is the nub of all questions of faith and religious belief. In general people believe in a god figure because the alternative, that mankind is simply another animal, that evolved by chance, and there is no greater purpose in life than their lot on earth, isn't something that they can stomach. Their is a need for there to be more to their existance than this mortal coil.
As a non-believer that is happy with this I have a couple of questions:
* If a god is required to bring mankind into being, how or what created this god? * If its ok for a god to have just existed, why isn't it ok for life on the earth to have evolved as it has by chance?
Eventually you get to a point where you just have to accept that you don't have an answer.
Reading the provisions in the bill its not so much a ban on porn but rather restricting access to it unless the primary subscriber has expressed a desire to see it and can prove that they are 18 or over.
All of the mobile (cell) providers in the UK already operate a similar system for Internet access over their networks. The ISPs will introduce a similar system if they feel that their consumers want it.
If the subscriber opts in though anyone in the household will be able to get all of the porn that they want so its pretty much a fig leaf exercise for the Daily Mail readers.
This is a false assertion. What Apple is trying to do is make a general purpose computer that they control exclusvely.
This is a subjective view based on a particularly slanted viewpoint. An alternative view is that Apple are trying to make technology accessible to non-technical people and preventing them from doing dumb things that ruins their experience.
Stop and think why they are having success with this approach for a minute. Its because the much vaunted freedom approach has failed those who aren't leet. You can shout and scream all you like but the alternative has been tried and found wanting.
It's terribly unfortunate that Apple has decided that iPad owners have no right to install whatever software the owner sees fit on his or her own tablet, thus necessitating (and encouraging) the jailbreaking community.
Mad props to these guys and their reverse engineering skills. Perhaps one day Apple will decide it's simply not worth the effort to keep up with the cat-and-mouse game of jailbreak/patch and just finally allow people to sideload apps and use their tablets however they want. Sadly, I don't foresee this happening.
Perhaps you, and all like minded individuals, are missing the point a little. Most people don't develop their own software, most people don't compile software, basically most people don't care about this great burning issue that you waste energy on. The iOS App Store provides a "safe" source of software for people's devices which, for most people, is what they want.
I know I'll get modded Troll but that's ok, I've karma to burn here, but it amazes me how willingly people follow the IT leet herd and discount what ordinary people want. The success Apple has had with iOS isn't some sort of aberration caused by orbital mind control lasers or a massive fad and cult of popularity. If it was the former the only people objecting would be those wearing tinfoil hats, if the latter it would have fallen on its face by now. Its a shame that ignorance of the consumers wants and needs is praised on here, and its a sad reflection on our industry that for all the progress that we've had in the past 30 years that we still concentrate on what the elite want and not what is useful for everyone.
Apple may have some nice products, but there is nothing I can't live without. Unlike MS, few people are locked-in to Apple.
I suppose Apple will still make a small amount off it's junk patents. But, that only until Apple gets sued back in some serious way. Really, how much of Apple's bullshit do you think other companies are going to take, before they take some action back?
How is this insightful? Its full of the same misguided claptrap that permiates slashdot and pretty much every tech forum. The discussion, if you can call it that, has descended to the level of an early Hollywoodland black and white movie. There is no attempt to actually look into the issues, in fact there is no need. Apple and Microsoft are the good guys, Google and any Android manufacturer are the good guys. The merits of any individual measure are immaterial./rant
If its so much bullshit can you please explain why the judge has ruled in the way that they have? That Motorola and Google have to provide information to Apple. If you can do so in a manner that does imply, infer, or state that the judge is a fanboi or on Apple's payroll that would be a benefit. Perhaps that post might be insightful.
I remember when things got discussed on Slashdot. Sadly that was a long time ago.
People buy your products because they are original, innovative and useful. Litigation for profit is not original. Litigation for profit is not innovative. Litigation for profit is not useful. Please, oh please, just get back to doing what people love you for.
So if you conceed that Apple has made original and innovative products why should they let people copy them for free?
Jeez. If you are going to bash Apple for suing Samsung for copying the form of the iPad almost completely just using inferior materials then at least get what the legal action was about right. The suit was based on copyright, not on a patent on a device with rounded corners. Samsung have pretty much tried to make their devices look like iPhones/iPads and skin Android to make it look like iOS which was pretty dumb.
The key issue is where the control lies. On Facebook the user has to explicitly allow the information to be used by the various applications etc. In Googleland they are just tearing down the barriers without giving the user the chance to say that they don't want their information from the different areas to be included in their meta-profile.
If Google had thought about it a simple acceptance screen allowing people to opt in and out their information from the meta-profile would probably have addressed the privacy concerns. It would also highlight to the users what information Google has collected and what services it is providing. Google steers by its own moral compass and doesn't really care what anyone else thinks as long as it's happy with what its doing.
Well in the case of Facebook at least, we don't have to worry about that as it's free for users.
As for funding the courts and patent office, first I thought the USPTO was self-funded by its fees, and second he's no more a parasite than all the other patent trolls out there, including all kinds of big companies like MS, Amazon, Apple, etc.
If there is a broken system that is being used by patent trolls to extort money off dubious inventions doesn't it make sense for large companies to file their own patents to protect themselves?
If people then profit from using those patents without obtaining some sort of agreement from the company then wouldn't it show a lack of due diligence in corporate governance if they didn't seek legal redress?
It appears that you are using the pejorative term 'evil' to describe these companies based on the populist, ill-informed, notion that corporations that resort to legal means are, by definition, evil. The patent system is at fault here not the companies that are duty bound to protect their interests within the system as it currently exists.
So, first they uesed the cheapest factory and labor from China, and now they are actually paying ZERO dollars (as it is the normal salary for any intern) to get their OS ported to ARM!!! What the...... Honestly, i think these guys don't even have ass, or even if they have, i could not imagine putting anything inside, that's how tight they are.
Yeah. Interns should just make coffee and run errands. How dare they give them the experience of porting an OS from one platform to another. Its outrageous!
This is just Apple keeping its options open. If Intel fails to deliver its promised low power CPUs Apple needs to know what effort would be needed to switch processor families. If it was a real strategy to move to ARM then it would have been more than a 12 week Intern project. What would be suicide for Apple would be to stuck in the PPC debacle again, ensuring OS portability is a good way to avoid that.
The apps will go where the market is. If there is a big enough market they would eat the porting costs, especially as Apple would want to make it as easy as possible. In theory, for applications that only use standard APIs, it should be as simple as checking a box in XCode and rebuilding the project.
Get your house in order before blaming countries like Germany, who have built a very strong export economy, for harming your own. You'd hardly say that Germany was in the position it's in by being like China in the way it goes about becoming a large net exporter - this is not simply about "restoring manufacturing" - it's not as simple as that by a long shot.
Some of Germany's export economy is fostered by the issues with the Euro currency. The impact of the doubts on the Southern European economies (Greece/Portugal/Spain/Italy) weakens the Euro. This allows Germany's powerful economy to benefit from advantageous exchange rates when exporting. If the Euro crisis eases, or some of the weaker economies leave altogether, Germany's export advantage will dry up and their economy may run into issues of their own.
iOS didn't succeed because it had a cult following. It succeeded because it delivered a unified experience that the user could understand and one that was far superior to the smartphones of the time. Apple has then iterated on this with each release. They've held back on features that they haven't deemed ready.
The problem for companies following has been that they've had to release something with at least as many features as the current version of iOS. That makes it harder to get everything right.
We rely on a select few to carry out a number of things in society. There are a select few doctors, barristers, engineers, dentists, etc. Its the way that our society works. IMO we have too many people in IT today that are doing it because its a job rather than because they understand it. This leads to many of the issues we see in IT.
If they are going to teach anything in schools make it problem solving, which already exists as part of some mathematics curriculums but has fallen into disuse because its tricky. Improve computer literacy in a general sense. Almost all homes have networks these days, explain how that works, etc. These can be done in the abstract but with practical application. Its the abstract that the children need to learn at this age because that base knowledge will be useful regardless of vendor etc.
But don't the colleges already have you locked in?
I can always change colleges. And changing colleges does not negate the contents of the book, whereas I cannot access the contents of an Apple-dependent iBook from another platform (at least, not without bending over backwards.)
So if one college says that you need to have book A for a course and the equivalent course at a different college says that you have to have book B that still means that you'll keep book A? I reckon that you'd have to sell it back to the bookstore and go buy book B.
The lock-in is unfortunate. There has to be something for the publisher here though as the income per unit is going to drop. In an ideal world there would be a standard format, but we are little way off that at the moment. At times you have to be realistic, strive for the utimate but go with the possible. This is a massive change in the way textbooks will be sold and used. Apple are leading the way (again) but others will catch up. To be honest I'm disappointed, I would have thought that this would have been delivered via HTML a long time ago. The fact that we are still using proprietary electronic formats means that we've got some way to go.
All of the many complaints about the 30% that Apple take for selling through their store are indignation based on ignorance of retail practices, this includes Pete Townsend. The publisher love that Apple only charge 30% because its far less than a normal retail channel. The publishers get more per sale electronically than they would selling physical books.
To answer your second point did you watch the announcement or are you just letting your predjudice define your opinions. One of the most interesting parts of the announcement was that these books would be updated, for free, meaning that you would always have the latest version. I'm still getting updates to app purchases I made on my iPhone 3 years ago. There is no reason why this wouldn't be the case for textbooks.
On your final point, rather than getting all high and mighty about it, just think about it. Why do you sell back your expensive textbooks? Partly because they are expensive. If they are cheap enough that you don't have to sell them back wouldn't it make sense to keep the book? I guess it depends on your view of education and knowledge. I view it as a life skill, something that you add to from year to year.
In general your post, and its rating, are why I've stopped look at Slashdot as a place to influence my opinion. It is filled with small minded opinion based on the status quo. I thought as geeks we were supposed to embrace change and look to the future. As with a lot in the world it seems that this happens less and less as the years go by.
Is last decades music listened to as much as music that was released last week? Are books from 100 years ago as popular as today's bestsellers?
Does newer mean better? Just because something is older doesn't mean that its of less import, or value, than something that's new. This might be the case in IT, but outside it's definitely not.
I don't like the idea of a shorter copyright. What if I write a book and it takes me 10 years to find a publisher that will distribute it to the masses? Does that mean that I've used up my copyright?
Copyright is a matter for the copyright holder. It should be up to them what they do with their rights. That said the rights shouldn't be transferable. If I write a book it should be up to me how I make that available. If people don't think that its worth what I want to charge for it they won't buy it. I then get to review that and change my approach, perhaps deciding to make it freely available over the internet. The key thing is that it should be my choice. That's one of the things about the Internet. Give control back to the people. Not to enable people to distribute exact copies of my work without my consent. I know that this view won't be popular on slashdot, but once people get past the 'I want free stuffs' its the only way that creativity can be sustained.
How does this differ from the subsidies given to green alternatives such as wind and solar? Power generation infrastructure is expensive and subsidy is the only way to move away from the cheaper fossil fuel methods.
My combined fuel costs (gas and electric) in the UK was around 5% of my income after tax until I started a new job last week. That was on an above average salary as well.
How is the above insightful when its blatently both biased and inaccurate. Companies have sued over patent issues since the system has been in place. The normal chain of events is to discuss the breach with the transgressor to allow them to modify their product or, if you allow it, to licence the patented item/design/process. If that fails then you resort to the courts.
The issue is never as one sided as many here see it. Sadly sense never prevails on slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
And again unlike creationism, intelligent design is not fundamentally at odds with evolution. They can coexist. Intelligent design is not really answering the same question as evolution. It goes beyond. It poses a possible answer (perhaps a convenient one, but find me another) to a series of questions which rise in most people's minds when they learn evolution.
Except that it implies an ordered direction to evolution, one that is controlled by some intelligence, to that end it is at odds with the general scientific principle of evolution. The differences between ID and creationism are a fig leaf. Fundementally they provide the same answer to the origin issue. That some super being, for which there is no testable evidence, that ordered things as they are.
The questions you ask are interesting, but I'd counter with a simple reversal of them. For each question you can ask why not. Its ok to not know, which is the nub of all questions of faith and religious belief. In general people believe in a god figure because the alternative, that mankind is simply another animal, that evolved by chance, and there is no greater purpose in life than their lot on earth, isn't something that they can stomach. Their is a need for there to be more to their existance than this mortal coil.
As a non-believer that is happy with this I have a couple of questions:
* If a god is required to bring mankind into being, how or what created this god?
* If its ok for a god to have just existed, why isn't it ok for life on the earth to have evolved as it has by chance?
Eventually you get to a point where you just have to accept that you don't have an answer.
Reading the provisions in the bill its not so much a ban on porn but rather restricting access to it unless the primary subscriber has expressed a desire to see it and can prove that they are 18 or over.
All of the mobile (cell) providers in the UK already operate a similar system for Internet access over their networks. The ISPs will introduce a similar system if they feel that their consumers want it.
If the subscriber opts in though anyone in the household will be able to get all of the porn that they want so its pretty much a fig leaf exercise for the Daily Mail readers.
Which is why it goes to ESTI and only one gets approved. That one is then adopted as the standard.
This is a false assertion. What Apple is trying to do is make a general purpose computer that they control exclusvely.
This is a subjective view based on a particularly slanted viewpoint. An alternative view is that Apple are trying to make technology accessible to non-technical people and preventing them from doing dumb things that ruins their experience.
Stop and think why they are having success with this approach for a minute. Its because the much vaunted freedom approach has failed those who aren't leet. You can shout and scream all you like but the alternative has been tried and found wanting.
It's terribly unfortunate that Apple has decided that iPad owners have no right to install whatever software the owner sees fit on his or her own tablet, thus necessitating (and encouraging) the jailbreaking community.
Mad props to these guys and their reverse engineering skills. Perhaps one day Apple will decide it's simply not worth the effort to keep up with the cat-and-mouse game of jailbreak/patch and just finally allow people to sideload apps and use their tablets however they want. Sadly, I don't foresee this happening.
Perhaps you, and all like minded individuals, are missing the point a little. Most people don't develop their own software, most people don't compile software, basically most people don't care about this great burning issue that you waste energy on. The iOS App Store provides a "safe" source of software for people's devices which, for most people, is what they want.
I know I'll get modded Troll but that's ok, I've karma to burn here, but it amazes me how willingly people follow the IT leet herd and discount what ordinary people want. The success Apple has had with iOS isn't some sort of aberration caused by orbital mind control lasers or a massive fad and cult of popularity. If it was the former the only people objecting would be those wearing tinfoil hats, if the latter it would have fallen on its face by now. Its a shame that ignorance of the consumers wants and needs is praised on here, and its a sad reflection on our industry that for all the progress that we've had in the past 30 years that we still concentrate on what the elite want and not what is useful for everyone.
I will be glad to go first.
Apple may have some nice products, but there is nothing I can't live without. Unlike MS, few people are locked-in to Apple.
I suppose Apple will still make a small amount off it's junk patents. But, that only until Apple gets sued back in some serious way. Really, how much of Apple's bullshit do you think other companies are going to take, before they take some action back?
How is this insightful? Its full of the same misguided claptrap that permiates slashdot and pretty much every tech forum. The discussion, if you can call it that, has descended to the level of an early Hollywoodland black and white movie. There is no attempt to actually look into the issues, in fact there is no need. Apple and Microsoft are the good guys, Google and any Android manufacturer are the good guys. The merits of any individual measure are immaterial. /rant
If its so much bullshit can you please explain why the judge has ruled in the way that they have? That Motorola and Google have to provide information to Apple. If you can do so in a manner that does imply, infer, or state that the judge is a fanboi or on Apple's payroll that would be a benefit. Perhaps that post might be insightful.
I remember when things got discussed on Slashdot. Sadly that was a long time ago.
People buy your products because they are original, innovative and useful. Litigation for profit is not original. Litigation for profit is not innovative. Litigation for profit is not useful. Please, oh please, just get back to doing what people love you for.
So if you conceed that Apple has made original and innovative products why should they let people copy them for free?
Jeez. If you are going to bash Apple for suing Samsung for copying the form of the iPad almost completely just using inferior materials then at least get what the legal action was about right. The suit was based on copyright, not on a patent on a device with rounded corners. Samsung have pretty much tried to make their devices look like iPhones/iPads and skin Android to make it look like iOS which was pretty dumb.
Google's motto is 'do no evil' which is laudable. It has to be asked though, "who defines what is evil?".
The key issue is where the control lies. On Facebook the user has to explicitly allow the information to be used by the various applications etc. In Googleland they are just tearing down the barriers without giving the user the chance to say that they don't want their information from the different areas to be included in their meta-profile.
If Google had thought about it a simple acceptance screen allowing people to opt in and out their information from the meta-profile would probably have addressed the privacy concerns. It would also highlight to the users what information Google has collected and what services it is providing. Google steers by its own moral compass and doesn't really care what anyone else thinks as long as it's happy with what its doing.
Well in the case of Facebook at least, we don't have to worry about that as it's free for users.
As for funding the courts and patent office, first I thought the USPTO was self-funded by its fees, and second he's no more a parasite than all the other patent trolls out there, including all kinds of big companies like MS, Amazon, Apple, etc.
If there is a broken system that is being used by patent trolls to extort money off dubious inventions doesn't it make sense for large companies to file their own patents to protect themselves?
If people then profit from using those patents without obtaining some sort of agreement from the company then wouldn't it show a lack of due diligence in corporate governance if they didn't seek legal redress?
It appears that you are using the pejorative term 'evil' to describe these companies based on the populist, ill-informed, notion that corporations that resort to legal means are, by definition, evil. The patent system is at fault here not the companies that are duty bound to protect their interests within the system as it currently exists.
Posting without reading the article, or having anything to contribute other than ill-informed opinion is a slashdot tradition.
Encounter at Farpoint was two episodes, at least outside the US.
So, first they uesed the cheapest factory and labor from China, and now they are actually paying ZERO dollars (as it is the normal salary for any intern) to get their OS ported to ARM!!! What the...... Honestly, i think these guys don't even have ass, or even if they have, i could not imagine putting anything inside, that's how tight they are.
Yeah. Interns should just make coffee and run errands. How dare they give them the experience of porting an OS from one platform to another. Its outrageous!
This is just Apple keeping its options open. If Intel fails to deliver its promised low power CPUs Apple needs to know what effort would be needed to switch processor families. If it was a real strategy to move to ARM then it would have been more than a 12 week Intern project. What would be suicide for Apple would be to stuck in the PPC debacle again, ensuring OS portability is a good way to avoid that.
The apps will go where the market is. If there is a big enough market they would eat the porting costs, especially as Apple would want to make it as easy as possible. In theory, for applications that only use standard APIs, it should be as simple as checking a box in XCode and rebuilding the project.
How is this different to buying the version of Battlefield 3 that included a voucher for the first DLC for free?
I guess that was multiplayer DLC but even so the concept isn't a new one.
Get your house in order before blaming countries like Germany, who have built a very strong export economy, for harming your own. You'd hardly say that Germany was in the position it's in by being like China in the way it goes about becoming a large net exporter - this is not simply about "restoring manufacturing" - it's not as simple as that by a long shot.
Some of Germany's export economy is fostered by the issues with the Euro currency. The impact of the doubts on the Southern European economies (Greece/Portugal/Spain/Italy) weakens the Euro. This allows Germany's powerful economy to benefit from advantageous exchange rates when exporting. If the Euro crisis eases, or some of the weaker economies leave altogether, Germany's export advantage will dry up and their economy may run into issues of their own.
iOS didn't succeed because it had a cult following. It succeeded because it delivered a unified experience that the user could understand and one that was far superior to the smartphones of the time. Apple has then iterated on this with each release. They've held back on features that they haven't deemed ready.
The problem for companies following has been that they've had to release something with at least as many features as the current version of iOS. That makes it harder to get everything right.
We rely on a select few to carry out a number of things in society. There are a select few doctors, barristers, engineers, dentists, etc. Its the way that our society works. IMO we have too many people in IT today that are doing it because its a job rather than because they understand it. This leads to many of the issues we see in IT.
If they are going to teach anything in schools make it problem solving, which already exists as part of some mathematics curriculums but has fallen into disuse because its tricky. Improve computer literacy in a general sense. Almost all homes have networks these days, explain how that works, etc. These can be done in the abstract but with practical application. Its the abstract that the children need to learn at this age because that base knowledge will be useful regardless of vendor etc.
I can always change colleges. And changing colleges does not negate the contents of the book, whereas I cannot access the contents of an Apple-dependent iBook from another platform (at least, not without bending over backwards.)
So if one college says that you need to have book A for a course and the equivalent course at a different college says that you have to have book B that still means that you'll keep book A? I reckon that you'd have to sell it back to the bookstore and go buy book B.
The lock-in is unfortunate. There has to be something for the publisher here though as the income per unit is going to drop. In an ideal world there would be a standard format, but we are little way off that at the moment. At times you have to be realistic, strive for the utimate but go with the possible. This is a massive change in the way textbooks will be sold and used. Apple are leading the way (again) but others will catch up. To be honest I'm disappointed, I would have thought that this would have been delivered via HTML a long time ago. The fact that we are still using proprietary electronic formats means that we've got some way to go.
All of the many complaints about the 30% that Apple take for selling through their store are indignation based on ignorance of retail practices, this includes Pete Townsend. The publisher love that Apple only charge 30% because its far less than a normal retail channel. The publishers get more per sale electronically than they would selling physical books.
To answer your second point did you watch the announcement or are you just letting your predjudice define your opinions. One of the most interesting parts of the announcement was that these books would be updated, for free, meaning that you would always have the latest version. I'm still getting updates to app purchases I made on my iPhone 3 years ago. There is no reason why this wouldn't be the case for textbooks.
On your final point, rather than getting all high and mighty about it, just think about it. Why do you sell back your expensive textbooks? Partly because they are expensive. If they are cheap enough that you don't have to sell them back wouldn't it make sense to keep the book? I guess it depends on your view of education and knowledge. I view it as a life skill, something that you add to from year to year.
In general your post, and its rating, are why I've stopped look at Slashdot as a place to influence my opinion. It is filled with small minded opinion based on the status quo. I thought as geeks we were supposed to embrace change and look to the future. As with a lot in the world it seems that this happens less and less as the years go by.
Is last decades music listened to as much as music that was released last week? Are books from 100 years ago as popular as today's bestsellers?
Does newer mean better? Just because something is older doesn't mean that its of less import, or value, than something that's new. This might be the case in IT, but outside it's definitely not.
I don't like the idea of a shorter copyright. What if I write a book and it takes me 10 years to find a publisher that will distribute it to the masses? Does that mean that I've used up my copyright?
Copyright is a matter for the copyright holder. It should be up to them what they do with their rights. That said the rights shouldn't be transferable. If I write a book it should be up to me how I make that available. If people don't think that its worth what I want to charge for it they won't buy it. I then get to review that and change my approach, perhaps deciding to make it freely available over the internet. The key thing is that it should be my choice. That's one of the things about the Internet. Give control back to the people. Not to enable people to distribute exact copies of my work without my consent. I know that this view won't be popular on slashdot, but once people get past the 'I want free stuffs' its the only way that creativity can be sustained.
How does this differ from the subsidies given to green alternatives such as wind and solar? Power generation infrastructure is expensive and subsidy is the only way to move away from the cheaper fossil fuel methods.
My combined fuel costs (gas and electric) in the UK was around 5% of my income after tax until I started a new job last week. That was on an above average salary as well.
How is the above insightful when its blatently both biased and inaccurate. Companies have sued over patent issues since the system has been in place. The normal chain of events is to discuss the breach with the transgressor to allow them to modify their product or, if you allow it, to licence the patented item/design/process. If that fails then you resort to the courts.
The issue is never as one sided as many here see it. Sadly sense never prevails on slashdot.