That's along the lines what I was thinking (but not exactly). A good IDE makes coding styles far less important than they use to be. I can load someone's horrendous looking K&R styled code, hit the "reformat" keyboard shortcut, and have readable code as a result.
Coding style only matters if you're not using a decent IDE.
...they required an acknowledgement of design differences
The UK Court told Apple exactly the wording to put on the website, and Apple did not comply. I would hope this results in a hefty Contempt of Court penalty for Apple's executives and lawyers.
I generally agree with you that Capitalism frequently breaks down, but this isn't one of those times (that time is coming, but it's still decades away). At the present time, we are still firmly in the phase of smart phone data usage being really convenient, but not even close to being critical infrastructure.
Right now, we're in the consumer intelligence test phase. This is a test of people's ability to differentiate between what they need and what they want. If you sign up for a data plan under those terms, you fail the test and are not intelligent enough to make spending decisions (assuming that money has a finite limit for you).
The only way that prices are going to return to sanity is for all of the stupid people signing up for these outrageous plans to grow a spine and say no.
Why are people posting their ideas here? Didn't they see the part about the prize?
Because this problem is so damned annoying that most of are willing to offer any ideas we have free of charge. The only problem I see is that the odds of the FTC actually doing anything are very remote.
[Chemistry] also teaches critical thinking and problem solving skills.
As does a range of other subjects, some of which his son may actually enjoy rather than loathe. But his son will not be given the opportunity to find those subjects, which is a far larger travesty than missing out on having to memorize a large number of facts that will be useless to him the moment the class is over.
This guy is acting like as if his son will be forced to take chemistry all his life.
He's acting as if his son is being forced to take a class for an entire year that has no benefits to anyone who is not going to be a chemist. At this phase in chemistry education, the entire year is spent doing almost nothing but memorizing facts that have no use beyond that class, and that will be immediately forgotten when the class is over. He is acting as if the entire experience is a monumental waste of his family's time and resources, when his son could be, and should be, superficially surveying a range of subjects in order to find something his son likes.
It forgets to mention why I'm supposed to be outraged, or upset, or concerned, or... feel anything at all about this.
Because this is the defacto power that all services hold over subscribers who store their data on servers they don't control. That this particular cloud service doesn't amount to anything particularly valuable isn't the point. The point is that the same thing will, and does, happen with all services that have exclusive control over someone else's data.
I've seen some really short-sighted responses to the tune of, "just store a copy of your data on the cloud, and keep a copy on your own server." That would be really good advice, assuming people did that. But we all know what will actually happen (and so do the "cloud" providers): people will get to the point where they think there is no longer a reason to keep their own copy (for a variety of reasons), and only worry about the copy on the server they don't control. Their own copy will get so woefully behind that it will be abandoned. Then their data will essentially be owned by the service provider, who will eventually jack up rates beyond what is reasonable.
But at that point, the customer is locked in, and doesn't have any choice but to pay the extortion money demanded by the "cloud" provider.
So yes, you should care because this behavior will be coming to a service you do care about, unless you're smart enough to avoid the whole "cloud" nonsense altogether. Boxee is just a symptom of a much larger problem for those who get suckered into "cloud" services.
Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.
Nor has anyone else.
There is a witch hunt against Google because it provides a set of services that provides better value than any of its competitors. There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone else from getting into search, except the need to provide a better product. This isn't like AT&T, IBM, or Microsoft (as you rightly pointed out), where there were insurmountable barriers (ability to install competing phone lines, incompatibilities causing vendor lock-in, and [what should have been illegal] exclusivity agreements with the entire supply chain).
The only thing keeping someone from competing with Google is that people like Google. Using a competing search engine is trivially easy (you just need to go there), but Google just provides a better service.
This witch hunt is just a desperate attempt by failed competitors to get the Government to make Google less useful, because the competitors know they can't compete on their merits.
Blatant stupidity should be mocked if the stupid want to impose their nonsensical beliefs on the rest of us.
Middle East violence isn't caused by speech. It's caused by stupid religious people (redundant, I know) wanting to kill anyone who isn't stupid. Then they want to imprison or kill anyone who points out how absurd their fantasies are.
Why on Earth should that be tolerated? We should be striving to eliminate idiocy from the Free world, not encouraging it, and mocking it is a perfectly valid means of exposing it.
Baghdad was the center of scientific progress over a 300-year period, until religion took over. Then a once-great civilization was destroyed, and ignorance and superstition flourished. That is the worse possible outcome, yet some people want to do that very same thing to the rest of the world.
Religion/Stupidity should be ridiculed. There is no place for it in a civilization.
The problem is that Restricted Boot (euphemistically known as "Secure Boot") is not there to work in your best interest. It is there to work in Microsoft's best interest. It is just another tool in Microsoft's arsenal to make sure you can't use your computer in any manner not approved by Microsoft.
Restricted Boot is not there to protect you. It is there to protect Microsoft from you leaving Microsoft. Any statement to the contrary is smoke and mirrors to confuse you.
$60,000 is not a retirement fund. He can live quite okay on that for up to a year, depending on where he lives. In some places, like California, he can live quite well for a few weeks.
It seems that once every twenty years or so, Microsoft does something right. This is one of them. If advertisers ignore the do not track flag, it's the advertiser's fault.
For the first time I can remember, Apache is very, Very, VERY wrong. I hope Linux distributions fix this Apache bug before shipping. The Apache Foundation should not be imposing its misguided politics onto its web server.
It takes years of testing to get a drug approved by the FDA, and that costs big big money to do. You get the drug approved by the FDA and then a chemist comes and makes the exact same thing, and your years of investment into research and development and clinical trials of that drug are going to not be paid off.
That has a very simple fix: require anyone selling the drug to perform their own clinical trials to prove that their own implementation is safe. Just because Company A sells the drug safely doesn't mean that Company B can do so, even if they are basing their product on the same foundation.
But we've got money to teach Creationism in schools
Teaching Creationism doesn't require any money...or evidence....or logic...or intelligence....or anything else. It's dirt cheap to teach, as it relies only upon what someone wants to believe at any given moment in time.
Real universal-level science, on the other hand, is very expensive. It requires the ability to make observations, the attention to detail and time necessary to evaluate and collate enormous amounts of data, the ability to accurately spot and eliminate flawed data, and a tremendous ability to arrive at logical conclusions based on said valid data. And it requires a LOT of money to build and maintain facilities needed to acquire such data.
To summarize:
Teaching Fantasy: Dirt Cheap. Expanding Human Knowledge: Not Dirt Cheap.
I had no clue in Romney's tone or anything else he was joking.
Romney is a lot of things (disingenuous, deceitful, hypocritical to name just a few), but it's obvious from watching the video that he was trying to be funny. His hardware and software just aren't programmed for it.
For my business clients that have to use Windows, I've had good experiences with installing Linux on the machine, then installing Virtualbox, then installing Windows within Virtualbox. When (not if) Windows gets a virus, I have them roll back to the last good snapshot. The virus goes away when the rollback occurs.
This won't work if you want to play games, of course. But for pure business use, it's been successful.
On the next two occasions where I was offered the drug after surgery I said no, just give me ibuprofen. It's just not worth it.
I can't imagine taking Ibuprofen for after-surgery pain management. The stuff has no effect on me beyond helping a minor headache. After my hemorrhoid surgery, I was prescribed a small dose and small supply of Hydrocodone, and a larger supply of Ibuprofen. The Hydrocodone completely shut off my pain for about two hours, with the Ibuprofen supposed to carry me through for the next two hours; at which time, I could take another dose of Hydrocodone.
At about the three hour mark, I was in quite a bit of discomfort; so I took the Ibuprofen as prescribed. It took the worst of the bite out of the pain, but just barely. After I was able to take the Hydrocodone again, the pain went away for a couple more hours. This repeated for the entire two and a half weeks I spent recovering from the surgery (the doctor didn't prep the area correctly, so I ended painfully re-injuring the surgical wound many times).
I had to refill the Hydrocodone prescription four or five times, since the doctor would prescribe only a few days' worth at a time. Near the point where I thought I should check the progress of my pain, I cut back to half the prescription. I did this a few times, as each time, the pain was still there (largely because of inadvertently ripping the surgical wound several times). But eventually, I reached a point where the pain was so minimal, I didn't need the pain killers anymore. I felt no desire to keep taking them, since they blunted my mind. I may be an exception (or may not be), but I just don't understand the big fear of addiction surrounding Hydrocodone. It's a great pain killer with minimal side effects (don't drive, etc.). I would not only take it in a heartbeat if I ever needed another surgery, but would demand nothing less.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney or tax professional. Use this information at your own risk.
I incorporated in Missouri a couple years ago as an S-Corporation. There are more drawbacks than benefits in my case, so I'm dissolving it. The biggest drawback is the paperwork. It's so easy to let it slide in order to have time for family and getting actual work done. Then it's very easy to get behind on the paperwork. Then it's very easy to find a letter from the IRS saying they're charging you penalty and interest for late filings. If you do only a small amount of contracting, professional fees are going to eat a significant part of your profits.
I want to address one VERY important misconception I've read on this discussion: liability. Incorporating as either the sole shareholder, or as one of a very few shareholders DOES NOT PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL ASSETS IF YOU GET SUED. The more shareholders you have, the greater the corporate shield protects you. Incorporating as the sole shareholder gives you almost the exact same liability as being a sole proprietor.
I found it much easier to just write up a contract disclaiming liability (as one line item), pay a contract attorney to review it and revise it, and then make all customers sign it. That is far more effective at protecting my personal assets than incorporating, and removes 99% of the crap I had to go through while incorporated, and lets me actually get the job done.
I also did my research to make sure I'm not going to fall into the IRS trap of being considered an employee rather than a contractor. You should, too. It's pretty simple, but very important, stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
That's along the lines what I was thinking (but not exactly). A good IDE makes coding styles far less important than they use to be. I can load someone's horrendous looking K&R styled code, hit the "reformat" keyboard shortcut, and have readable code as a result.
Coding style only matters if you're not using a decent IDE.
...they required an acknowledgement of design differences
The UK Court told Apple exactly the wording to put on the website, and Apple did not comply. I would hope this results in a hefty Contempt of Court penalty for Apple's executives and lawyers.
I doubt they'll push any patch out without testing it.
You must be new to Oracle. I envy you.
I generally agree with you that Capitalism frequently breaks down, but this isn't one of those times (that time is coming, but it's still decades away). At the present time, we are still firmly in the phase of smart phone data usage being really convenient, but not even close to being critical infrastructure.
Right now, we're in the consumer intelligence test phase. This is a test of people's ability to differentiate between what they need and what they want. If you sign up for a data plan under those terms, you fail the test and are not intelligent enough to make spending decisions (assuming that money has a finite limit for you).
The only way that prices are going to return to sanity is for all of the stupid people signing up for these outrageous plans to grow a spine and say no.
But that's not going to happen.
If only there were some lessons learned over decades and decades of mainframe use that that could be applied to the cloud.
Fans of, "I don't want to have to do my job" will never learn the lessons of the past.
I would love to see newspapers get what they ask for, and watch their Web traffic sink to nearly zero.
Why are people posting their ideas here? Didn't they see the part about the prize?
Because this problem is so damned annoying that most of are willing to offer any ideas we have free of charge. The only problem I see is that the odds of the FTC actually doing anything are very remote.
The text of the message Apple must display has been spelled out by the court, so Apple has no creative freedom in posting its own interpretation.
[Chemistry] also teaches critical thinking and problem solving skills.
As does a range of other subjects, some of which his son may actually enjoy rather than loathe. But his son will not be given the opportunity to find those subjects, which is a far larger travesty than missing out on having to memorize a large number of facts that will be useless to him the moment the class is over.
This guy is acting like as if his son will be forced to take chemistry all his life.
He's acting as if his son is being forced to take a class for an entire year that has no benefits to anyone who is not going to be a chemist. At this phase in chemistry education, the entire year is spent doing almost nothing but memorizing facts that have no use beyond that class, and that will be immediately forgotten when the class is over. He is acting as if the entire experience is a monumental waste of his family's time and resources, when his son could be, and should be, superficially surveying a range of subjects in order to find something his son likes.
And he's right.
It forgets to mention why I'm supposed to be outraged, or upset, or concerned, or... feel anything at all about this.
Because this is the defacto power that all services hold over subscribers who store their data on servers they don't control. That this particular cloud service doesn't amount to anything particularly valuable isn't the point. The point is that the same thing will, and does, happen with all services that have exclusive control over someone else's data.
I've seen some really short-sighted responses to the tune of, "just store a copy of your data on the cloud, and keep a copy on your own server." That would be really good advice, assuming people did that. But we all know what will actually happen (and so do the "cloud" providers): people will get to the point where they think there is no longer a reason to keep their own copy (for a variety of reasons), and only worry about the copy on the server they don't control. Their own copy will get so woefully behind that it will be abandoned. Then their data will essentially be owned by the service provider, who will eventually jack up rates beyond what is reasonable.
But at that point, the customer is locked in, and doesn't have any choice but to pay the extortion money demanded by the "cloud" provider.
So yes, you should care because this behavior will be coming to a service you do care about, unless you're smart enough to avoid the whole "cloud" nonsense altogether. Boxee is just a symptom of a much larger problem for those who get suckered into "cloud" services.
Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.
Nor has anyone else.
There is a witch hunt against Google because it provides a set of services that provides better value than any of its competitors. There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone else from getting into search, except the need to provide a better product. This isn't like AT&T, IBM, or Microsoft (as you rightly pointed out), where there were insurmountable barriers (ability to install competing phone lines, incompatibilities causing vendor lock-in, and [what should have been illegal] exclusivity agreements with the entire supply chain).
The only thing keeping someone from competing with Google is that people like Google. Using a competing search engine is trivially easy (you just need to go there), but Google just provides a better service.
This witch hunt is just a desperate attempt by failed competitors to get the Government to make Google less useful, because the competitors know they can't compete on their merits.
Blatant stupidity should be mocked if the stupid want to impose their nonsensical beliefs on the rest of us.
Middle East violence isn't caused by speech. It's caused by stupid religious people (redundant, I know) wanting to kill anyone who isn't stupid. Then they want to imprison or kill anyone who points out how absurd their fantasies are.
Why on Earth should that be tolerated? We should be striving to eliminate idiocy from the Free world, not encouraging it, and mocking it is a perfectly valid means of exposing it.
Baghdad was the center of scientific progress over a 300-year period, until religion took over. Then a once-great civilization was destroyed, and ignorance and superstition flourished. That is the worse possible outcome, yet some people want to do that very same thing to the rest of the world.
Religion/Stupidity should be ridiculed. There is no place for it in a civilization.
I like having a trusted hardware root.
The problem is that Restricted Boot (euphemistically known as "Secure Boot") is not there to work in your best interest. It is there to work in Microsoft's best interest. It is just another tool in Microsoft's arsenal to make sure you can't use your computer in any manner not approved by Microsoft.
Restricted Boot is not there to protect you. It is there to protect Microsoft from you leaving Microsoft. Any statement to the contrary is smoke and mirrors to confuse you.
$60,000 is not a retirement fund. He can live quite okay on that for up to a year, depending on where he lives. In some places, like California, he can live quite well for a few weeks.
MSDN is awesome for devs
Paying $700 for an operating system that does essentially nothing out of the box is the height of ridiculousness. It's monopoly power at its worst.
For once I'm on MS side in this matter...
It seems that once every twenty years or so, Microsoft does something right. This is one of them. If advertisers ignore the do not track flag, it's the advertiser's fault.
For the first time I can remember, Apache is very, Very, VERY wrong. I hope Linux distributions fix this Apache bug before shipping. The Apache Foundation should not be imposing its misguided politics onto its web server.
It takes years of testing to get a drug approved by the FDA, and that costs big big money to do. You get the drug approved by the FDA and then a chemist comes and makes the exact same thing, and your years of investment into research and development and clinical trials of that drug are going to not be paid off.
That has a very simple fix: require anyone selling the drug to perform their own clinical trials to prove that their own implementation is safe. Just because Company A sells the drug safely doesn't mean that Company B can do so, even if they are basing their product on the same foundation.
But we've got money to teach Creationism in schools
Teaching Creationism doesn't require any money...or evidence....or logic...or intelligence....or anything else. It's dirt cheap to teach, as it relies only upon what someone wants to believe at any given moment in time.
Real universal-level science, on the other hand, is very expensive. It requires the ability to make observations, the attention to detail and time necessary to evaluate and collate enormous amounts of data, the ability to accurately spot and eliminate flawed data, and a tremendous ability to arrive at logical conclusions based on said valid data. And it requires a LOT of money to build and maintain facilities needed to acquire such data.
To summarize:
Teaching Fantasy: Dirt Cheap.
Expanding Human Knowledge: Not Dirt Cheap.
I had no clue in Romney's tone or anything else he was joking.
Romney is a lot of things (disingenuous, deceitful, hypocritical to name just a few), but it's obvious from watching the video that he was trying to be funny. His hardware and software just aren't programmed for it.
Considering his war crimes and terroristic actions could we expect any less?
To which member of the U.S. Government are you referring? Your statement applies to most of them.
For my business clients that have to use Windows, I've had good experiences with installing Linux on the machine, then installing Virtualbox, then installing Windows within Virtualbox. When (not if) Windows gets a virus, I have them roll back to the last good snapshot. The virus goes away when the rollback occurs.
This won't work if you want to play games, of course. But for pure business use, it's been successful.
If it contains the words, "using a computer," or some such derivative, it is almost certainly a bogus patent application.
On the next two occasions where I was offered the drug after surgery I said no, just give me ibuprofen. It's just not worth it.
I can't imagine taking Ibuprofen for after-surgery pain management. The stuff has no effect on me beyond helping a minor headache. After my hemorrhoid surgery, I was prescribed a small dose and small supply of Hydrocodone, and a larger supply of Ibuprofen. The Hydrocodone completely shut off my pain for about two hours, with the Ibuprofen supposed to carry me through for the next two hours; at which time, I could take another dose of Hydrocodone.
At about the three hour mark, I was in quite a bit of discomfort; so I took the Ibuprofen as prescribed. It took the worst of the bite out of the pain, but just barely. After I was able to take the Hydrocodone again, the pain went away for a couple more hours. This repeated for the entire two and a half weeks I spent recovering from the surgery (the doctor didn't prep the area correctly, so I ended painfully re-injuring the surgical wound many times).
I had to refill the Hydrocodone prescription four or five times, since the doctor would prescribe only a few days' worth at a time. Near the point where I thought I should check the progress of my pain, I cut back to half the prescription. I did this a few times, as each time, the pain was still there (largely because of inadvertently ripping the surgical wound several times). But eventually, I reached a point where the pain was so minimal, I didn't need the pain killers anymore. I felt no desire to keep taking them, since they blunted my mind. I may be an exception (or may not be), but I just don't understand the big fear of addiction surrounding Hydrocodone. It's a great pain killer with minimal side effects (don't drive, etc.). I would not only take it in a heartbeat if I ever needed another surgery, but would demand nothing less.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney or tax professional. Use this information at your own risk.
I incorporated in Missouri a couple years ago as an S-Corporation. There are more drawbacks than benefits in my case, so I'm dissolving it. The biggest drawback is the paperwork. It's so easy to let it slide in order to have time for family and getting actual work done. Then it's very easy to get behind on the paperwork. Then it's very easy to find a letter from the IRS saying they're charging you penalty and interest for late filings. If you do only a small amount of contracting, professional fees are going to eat a significant part of your profits.
I want to address one VERY important misconception I've read on this discussion: liability. Incorporating as either the sole shareholder, or as one of a very few shareholders DOES NOT PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL ASSETS IF YOU GET SUED. The more shareholders you have, the greater the corporate shield protects you. Incorporating as the sole shareholder gives you almost the exact same liability as being a sole proprietor.
I found it much easier to just write up a contract disclaiming liability (as one line item), pay a contract attorney to review it and revise it, and then make all customers sign it. That is far more effective at protecting my personal assets than incorporating, and removes 99% of the crap I had to go through while incorporated, and lets me actually get the job done.
I also did my research to make sure I'm not going to fall into the IRS trap of being considered an employee rather than a contractor. You should, too. It's pretty simple, but very important, stuff.