I don't think it would work out like you say. Think of it this way... Most states are "red" or "blue" which means that they are ignored. The politicians don't spend any time there because they know that the state will go their way or to their opponent regardless of what they do. Result is that the citizen votes are taken for granted and they don't have any say and they don't get any promises or bribes. Both majority and minority voters feel their votes don't count since the result is already set. If a state elected to delegate all of their electoral votes to the national vote winner, then every vote in that state would count towards the national total so even if it was a solidly red or blue state, the opposition could pick up votes there and would come to the state to offer promises and bribes to gain these votes. Result is that the minority citizens get promises and bribes and are motivated to vote because their vote will count. Also, the majority citizens get promises and bribes because their votes suddenly count towards the national total.
I heard of a plan (apparently already implemented in seven states) to have all of a state's electoral votes go to the person with the most national votes. This sounds like a good idea. This would help ensure that the winner was the person with the most votes. I can't think of a downside for this. In order to earn the electoral votes of these states, the candidates would have to earn the most national votes which means that they would have to try to earn votes in all states and not write off states that were safely in one camp.
I like the phrase they used: "like eating hard rice"
Clearly, the hardware manufacturers who have been subservient to Microsoft are looking at a new reality and will have to decide what to support. This may give them the motivation to move to Android for phones and tablets and ignore Microsoft's offerings.
Cell phone service could be made more reliable than land line phones. Land line phones are vulnerable because of all of those wires strung on poles which get knocked down in windstorms. Cell phone service doesn't have all of those vulnerable wires strung all over the place. They have either a well protected (underground) cable or a microwave link. What is needed is power to the cell phone towers and the phone companies have been fighting against a requirement that they have backup power. However, if the cell towers had reliable power, they would be more reliable than land line service (which has been required to have backup batteries). Seems like a logical requirement to have cell tower power backup.
The "Fix It Again Tony" meme lives on but Fiat along with all other car makers have upped their game. The new Fiat 500 is first quality. I've had it for almost 2 years and 20,000 miles and it has been flawless. I do admit that I was worried about an Fiat built in Mexico but I haven't found a single thing wrong with it and I do love it. It's got plenty of power to go over the mountains here and it's a lot of fun to drive. It's even good in the snow thanks to electronic traction control and stability control. Plus 42 MPG average over 20,000 miles has saved me thousands in gas costs.
I think that patent holders could implement their designs in hardware (which might have speed or cost advantages) but "copycats" could implement in software to avoid infringement (or could license the patent and implement in hardware). It certainly would make software patents less valuable... "one-click" would be worthless.
I don't think that there would be any issues of defining "program" but I do think there could be battles about "generally used computer hardware". Stallman is clearly on the side of software freedom in his proposal anything that can be reduced to a software program would be free to run. The sticky area is in defining the hardware. I think that once you code something in hardware such as a gate array, it ceases to be in the category of "generally used computer hardware" but there are grey areas. Stallman's proposal leans towards giving software programmers and users protection while preserving some rights for hardware developers. Note: I think this is an interesting idea but I don't now have an opinion on if this would be a good idea even if it could be passed by our corrupt congresscritters so please don't argue with me about Stallman's ideas.
First, this is not "my" position. I'm just attempting to understand what Stallman is saying so don't start an argument with me. So your hypothetical is: taking a patented algorithm that runs on general purpose hardware (not patent infringement) and moving it to hard-wired logic (not general purpose hardware). I think (if I understand Stallman correctly) that once you move the patent algorithm to hard-wired logic, it would require a patent license.
I think Stallman's point is that you can sidestep the issue of what is "software" by just stating that it's not patent infringement running code on standard computer hardware. You don't have to muck with the definition of hardware or software or patents (which can all be gamed by lawyers). From TFA: "My suggestion is to change the effect of patents. We should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement. This approach has several advantages:
It doesn’t require classifying patents or patent applications as “software” or “not software.”
It provides developers and users with protection from both existing and potential future computational idea patents.
Patent lawyers can’t defeat the intended effect by writing applications differently."
In your example, once you move the code to general purpose hardware, it's no longer infringement.
Anecdotal experience is never relevant to any decision. If you don't get the vaccine, you risk getting the flu. That is an entry in the Darwin award. If you do get the vaccine, your risk of death drops significantly. If you don't, roll the dice for Darwin. Here is a recent study: The team found in those who had the vaccine, the risk reduction was significant. They saw a 50 percent decrease in the risk of a major cardiac happening (stroke, heart attack, or cardiac death), after being compared with placebo after one year of follow-up. Similarly, a pattern was seen in those with the flu vaccine, a decrease in death from any cause (about 40 percent).
Where did you get your 0.1% death rate from flu vaccine? It's covered in brown stuff. Is that where it came from? Death rate from flu vaccine is less than one in a million (and those are due to allergic reactions). I believe in science, not anecdote. I'll take a 50% reduction in death rate over a one in a million chance of death any day.
Today's Slashdot quote: "You will be reincarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier."
"Statics (sic) don't work at the individual level." (I think you meant "statistics". If not, I have no idea what you are talking about and please ignore the response below.)
I think this is the problem. People trust their own anecdotal experience more than the scientific method. Doctors have a big problem with this when they will ignore practice guidelines based on broad scientific consensus and override it because their own anecdotal experience differs. This is a big fail. Statistics do work at the individual level if you understand science and probability. Unfortunately, many people don't and that is why casinos make big bucks. I'll take statistics over my anecdotal experience as a solid bet any day.
(BTW, you example of allergy to eggs is a poor analogy. Science says that if you are allergic to eggs, stay away from them. The statistics support this.)
The Nexus One has an unlocked bootloader so you can install (and uninstall) anything you want (including a completely "bare" Cyanogenmod) if you'll take a few minutes to google-it.
I don't think your really understand the way the world works. The US is in charge and if you don't do what they want, then the US can make life very difficult for you and your citizens. This includes things such as trade sanctions, boycotts and cutting your country off from oil, banking, etc. all the way up to coup, aiding "rebels" or invasion if you are really threatening the corporate establishment of the US (see: South America, SE Asia, Middle East, China, Africa... anybody I've missed?). The people who actually live in a target country don't have a say in this matter.
There are numerous examples which you can Google yourself or just read some history that isn't filtered through the grade school textbooks.
Ballmer has his own reality distortion field just like Steve Jobs. The difference is that nobody believes Ballmer's RDF while Jobs was able to get a lot of people to buy into his.
I don't think the problem is with old information. The problem is with current information that the people in power want to hide. I guess the Wikileaks videos of US helicopters killing unarmed civilians are a good example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik
This is not about personal privacy. This is about governments and other public bodies trying to keep secrets from the people who elected them (or, in some cases, didn't elect them). One could argue that this information should be freely available (with reasonable restrictions) but in an effort to cover up and deceive, governments keep the information secret. Wikileaks seemed to take a lot of effort to prevent personal private information from disclosure. Many governments have "Freedom of information" laws which specifically grant access to government information so they do recognize that information should be free. However, there is always a battle about where to draw the line with governments wanting to be more restrictive and "the people" wanting more information.
Back in the bad old days when I was forced to use a Windows computer, I used to wave my hands (and one particular finger) at it a lot... it didn't seem to do to much but it made me feel better.
I think Nokia actually excelled at making "plain vanilla" phones which "just worked". They used to have a large market share (and profits) with people who just wanted an inexpensive, easy, reliable phone. I think they could go back to this market with solid, reliable Android phones and clean up... it wouldn't hurt to also have a high end (Android) phone at the top of the line. The Windows phones are a dead end.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think it would work out like you say.
Think of it this way...
Most states are "red" or "blue" which means that they are ignored. The politicians don't spend any time there because they know that the state will go their way or to their opponent regardless of what they do. Result is that the citizen votes are taken for granted and they don't have any say and they don't get any promises or bribes. Both majority and minority voters feel their votes don't count since the result is already set.
If a state elected to delegate all of their electoral votes to the national vote winner, then every vote in that state would count towards the national total so even if it was a solidly red or blue state, the opposition could pick up votes there and would come to the state to offer promises and bribes to gain these votes. Result is that the minority citizens get promises and bribes and are motivated to vote because their vote will count. Also, the majority citizens get promises and bribes because their votes suddenly count towards the national total.
I heard of a plan (apparently already implemented in seven states) to have all of a state's electoral votes go to the person with the most national votes.
This sounds like a good idea.
This would help ensure that the winner was the person with the most votes.
I can't think of a downside for this. In order to earn the electoral votes of these states, the candidates would have to earn the most national votes which means that they would have to try to earn votes in all states and not write off states that were safely in one camp.
Electric cars don't have oil to change.
Interesting comment from Taiwan maker Acer about Microsoft's going into hardware competition:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57545024-75/acer-warns-microsoft-that-hardware-is-like-hard-rice/
I like the phrase they used: "like eating hard rice"
Clearly, the hardware manufacturers who have been subservient to Microsoft are looking at a new reality and will have to decide what to support.
This may give them the motivation to move to Android for phones and tablets and ignore Microsoft's offerings.
Cell phone service could be made more reliable than land line phones.
Land line phones are vulnerable because of all of those wires strung on poles which get knocked down in windstorms. Cell phone service doesn't have all of those vulnerable wires strung all over the place. They have either a well protected (underground) cable or a microwave link.
What is needed is power to the cell phone towers and the phone companies have been fighting against a requirement that they have backup power. However, if the cell towers had reliable power, they would be more reliable than land line service (which has been required to have backup batteries). Seems like a logical requirement to have cell tower power backup.
The "Fix It Again Tony" meme lives on but Fiat along with all other car makers have upped their game.
The new Fiat 500 is first quality. I've had it for almost 2 years and 20,000 miles and it has been flawless.
I do admit that I was worried about an Fiat built in Mexico but I haven't found a single thing wrong with it and I do love it. It's got plenty of power to go over the mountains here and it's a lot of fun to drive. It's even good in the snow thanks to electronic traction control and stability control. Plus 42 MPG average over 20,000 miles has saved me thousands in gas costs.
My real world mileage on my Fiat 500 is about 5 mpg more than the sticker label. (42 mpg average)
My office building has fire department lock box next to the front door.
Easy entry without an axe.
The chiclet keyboard is still alive and well on MacBooks!
I think that patent holders could implement their designs in hardware (which might have speed or cost advantages) but "copycats" could implement in software to avoid infringement (or could license the patent and implement in hardware).
It certainly would make software patents less valuable... "one-click" would be worthless.
I don't think that there would be any issues of defining "program" but I do think there could be battles about "generally used computer hardware".
Stallman is clearly on the side of software freedom in his proposal anything that can be reduced to a software program would be free to run. The sticky area is in defining the hardware. I think that once you code something in hardware such as a gate array, it ceases to be in the category of "generally used computer hardware" but there are grey areas. Stallman's proposal leans towards giving software programmers and users protection while preserving some rights for hardware developers.
Note: I think this is an interesting idea but I don't now have an opinion on if this would be a good idea even if it could be passed by our corrupt congresscritters so please don't argue with me about Stallman's ideas.
First, this is not "my" position. I'm just attempting to understand what Stallman is saying so don't start an argument with me.
So your hypothetical is: taking a patented algorithm that runs on general purpose hardware (not patent infringement) and moving it to hard-wired logic (not general purpose hardware). I think (if I understand Stallman correctly) that once you move the patent algorithm to hard-wired logic, it would require a patent license.
I think Stallman's point is that you can sidestep the issue of what is "software" by just stating that it's not patent infringement running code on standard computer hardware. You don't have to muck with the definition of hardware or software or patents (which can all be gamed by lawyers).
From TFA:
"My suggestion is to change the effect of patents. We should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement. This approach has several advantages:
It doesn’t require classifying patents or patent applications as “software” or “not software.”
It provides developers and users with protection from both existing and potential future computational idea patents.
Patent lawyers can’t defeat the intended effect by writing applications differently."
In your example, once you move the code to general purpose hardware, it's no longer infringement.
Anecdotal experience is never relevant to any decision.
If you don't get the vaccine, you risk getting the flu. That is an entry in the Darwin award.
If you do get the vaccine, your risk of death drops significantly. If you don't, roll the dice for Darwin.
Here is a recent study:
The team found in those who had the vaccine, the risk reduction was significant. They saw a 50 percent decrease in the risk of a major cardiac happening (stroke, heart attack, or cardiac death), after being compared with placebo after one year of follow-up. Similarly, a pattern was seen in those with the flu vaccine, a decrease in death from any cause (about 40 percent).
Where did you get your 0.1% death rate from flu vaccine? It's covered in brown stuff. Is that where it came from?
Death rate from flu vaccine is less than one in a million (and those are due to allergic reactions).
I believe in science, not anecdote. I'll take a 50% reduction in death rate over a one in a million chance of death any day.
Today's Slashdot quote:
"You will be reincarnated as a toad; and you will be much happier."
"Statics (sic) don't work at the individual level."
(I think you meant "statistics". If not, I have no idea what you are talking about and please ignore the response below.)
I think this is the problem. People trust their own anecdotal experience more than the scientific method. Doctors have a big problem with this when they will ignore practice guidelines based on broad scientific consensus and override it because their own anecdotal experience differs. This is a big fail.
Statistics do work at the individual level if you understand science and probability. Unfortunately, many people don't and that is why casinos make big bucks.
I'll take statistics over my anecdotal experience as a solid bet any day.
(BTW, you example of allergy to eggs is a poor analogy. Science says that if you are allergic to eggs, stay away from them. The statistics support this.)
Your anecdotal experience is not relevant.
Not getting flu vaccine is an entry for the Darwin award.
You really should trust science.
The Nexus One has an unlocked bootloader so you can install (and uninstall) anything you want (including a completely "bare" Cyanogenmod) if you'll take a few minutes to google-it.
I (and my wife) also have Nexus Ones with the current official OTA image and we just don't have this problem.
Perhaps you have a hardware problem?
Right!
"64 apps should be enough for anyone!"
I don't think your really understand the way the world works.
The US is in charge and if you don't do what they want, then the US can make life very difficult for you and your citizens.
This includes things such as trade sanctions, boycotts and cutting your country off from oil, banking, etc. all the way up to coup, aiding "rebels" or invasion if you are really threatening the corporate establishment of the US (see: South America, SE Asia, Middle East, China, Africa... anybody I've missed?).
The people who actually live in a target country don't have a say in this matter.
There are numerous examples which you can Google yourself or just read some history that isn't filtered through the grade school textbooks.
Ballmer has his own reality distortion field just like Steve Jobs.
The difference is that nobody believes Ballmer's RDF while Jobs was able to get a lot of people to buy into his.
I don't think the problem is with old information.
The problem is with current information that the people in power want to hide. I guess the Wikileaks videos of US helicopters killing unarmed civilians are a good example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik
This is not about personal privacy.
This is about governments and other public bodies trying to keep secrets from the people who elected them (or, in some cases, didn't elect them). One could argue that this information should be freely available (with reasonable restrictions) but in an effort to cover up and deceive, governments keep the information secret.
Wikileaks seemed to take a lot of effort to prevent personal private information from disclosure.
Many governments have "Freedom of information" laws which specifically grant access to government information so they do recognize that information should be free. However, there is always a battle about where to draw the line with governments wanting to be more restrictive and "the people" wanting more information.
Back in the bad old days when I was forced to use a Windows computer, I used to wave my hands (and one particular finger) at it a lot... it didn't seem to do to much but it made me feel better.
I think Nokia actually excelled at making "plain vanilla" phones which "just worked". They used to have a large market share (and profits) with people who just wanted an inexpensive, easy, reliable phone.
I think they could go back to this market with solid, reliable Android phones and clean up... it wouldn't hurt to also have a high end (Android) phone at the top of the line.
The Windows phones are a dead end.