Yes, I take a similar approach when I travel now, given the insanity at the airports, especially since TSA employees seem to take a liking to my Thinkpad (it gets pulled aside so they can paw through my laptop bag every damn time.) Probably it's because I have a few tools in it, I don't know. Anyway, all they'll ever see is fresh re-image of the OS with a few applications, and none of my work files. When I get where I'm going, I download whatever I need, and when I'm finished I upload any new files and then wipe the machine again. They're more than welcome to power up my computer or image the drive. They're not going to find anything I don't want them to find. That's mostly stuff that I do for work, source code and so forth, that I would be irresponsible to not take some steps to protect. Like you say, it's none of the government's business, and they have always maintained demonstrably poor security.
Cloud storage. Imagine how much data you can store in a hurricane!
Yes, and given the energy release of a hurricane there will be no problem with power for your high-velocity cloud storage system.
Personally, I think the government should broadcast a simple numeric code to make these warnings easy to understand. For example, the code for "complete devastation event" might be 2012.
belief for a layperson is not only sufficient, it is necessary. Consider the major difference in how information is imparted to individuals
Well, yes and no. You're right: at some level it is a matter of trust. Scientists are point-blank not supposed to trust each other, but the end result of the process is supposed to be something that the rest of us can trust.
However, I disagree that your typical "lay person" is fundamentally incapable of distinguishing between what many would themselves agree is irrational, versus that which does have some degree of scientific validation. Especially in the age of the global network where such information, of varying levels of sophistication, is readily available to any who want it. No-one expects non-scientists to run experiments and submit them for peer-review, but there is something to be said for having at least a basic understanding of how science is performed. Evidence of the lack of that understanding presents itself all the time: hell, this ridiculous misuse of the term "scientific theory" just torques me into a pretzel.
This issue is more a matter of whether ordinary citizens can be bothered to make the distinction, to make the effort to learn what science, the scientific method, and applied science mean to their daily lives. Schools are supposed to teach that, and in my day they did, but in today's United States of America they have been falling flat on their faces in that regard.
My early years in school were in the sixties, and the change between then, and now, is substantial (and was painful to watch.) As a child, I and my classmates were taken on regular field trips to laboratories, scientific institutions and manufacturing plants of all kinds, were encouraged to speak to real scientists and engineers. We ended up with a very clear understanding of how progress is made and how the fruits of scientific research improved our standard of living. I firmly believe that had those excellent educational policies continued throughout the anti-science period of the seventies and onward, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
One, when I was 21 (and no cell phone, they didn't have cell phones then.) Another when I was forty-something: a delivery-van bolted out of an alleyway and broadsided me.
Near accidents? All the time... but then again I'm on the expressway at rush hour twice a day. And most of those near-misses are with people who have a cell phone jammed into their ears. It's like navigating a moving minefield.
The reality is, cell phone use while driving should be avoided. Just as eating, fondling your girlfriends breasts, twiddling with your car radio, and any number of other distracting activities should also be avoided while behind the wheel. The human brain point-blank does not multitask well: the problem is that many people's brains think that they do. Numerous studies have shown that they're wrong.
And I believe you meant "right of way." Interestingly, in the U.S. we all have a Constitutionally-protect right to travel, so we all have right-of-way... it's just that under certain circumstances we can be required to temporarily grant the right-of-way to others. That's about the only way a traffic control system could work.
Some thirty years ago, I was doing software development for a number of research outfits (neurological data acquisition, that sort of thing.) I recall one conversation between a lead research scientist and his division chief. They were working on a rather large grant proposal at the time. The dialog revolved around a key dataset that had some points that didn't support their conclusions. The chief was suggesting that they simply remove the (ahem!) "bad" data from the proposal. The scientist, who was becoming visibly upset has his boss went on, finally exploded with "you can't just throw away data you don't like!"
The resulting argument was Biblical. One the one side was the bureaucrat wanting to make sure that they had enough funds to continue their research (and remember, the institution took 80% right off the top.) On the other was a topnotch scientist only concerned with the quality of his work and that he not be subject to charges of fraud.
I was just a fly on the wall but I learned a lot that day.
I use my phone's navigation app, mostly because it can update traffic and road conditions ahead. But I position it where it isn't distracting, is easy to get to and I don't mess with it once I enter a detestation.
Well, I won't argue with your need to go to places that you detest, but I agree about phone navigation. I just stuff it in my shirt pocket once I'm on the road: I have the turn-by-turn coming out of my car's speakers. Works very well, and it's only the occasional situation (maybe an odd intersection with streets coming in a funny angles) where I need to look at the display.
To be blunt, how would you have the least freaking clue whether or not it has a "surprisingly minimal effect on driving."?
And maybe that's true for him, although I doubt it. And if you were to present a video of his minimally-affected driving to him, he would probably be, well... surprised. In reality, most people believe that whatever stupid things they habitually do behind the wheel have a "surprisingly minimal effect" on their driving, and will defend their opinion of themselves and their supernatural abilities to the death.
Or people will just move back to using portable devices instead of ones that are part of the car.
I pipe the audio output of my smartphone through my car's speakers. I also use it to listen to music on occasion: the music is automatically paused while the GPS is talking so there is no confusion. As it happens, I normally use Google Nav, and the voice works well enough that I rarely need the display. So well, in fact, that I usually just leave the phone in my pocket. If you do need to constantly look at the screen, it probably means your navigation system is poorly designed, or perhaps you are just a very insecure person. My girlfriend has dedicated GPS from Magellan, and it's turn-by-turn likewise works very well (somewhat better than Google's system in many cases.)
I agree with some other posters: get the units with low-quality software off the market. The government would do better mandating improved functionality rather than imposing arbitrary (and fundamentally dangerous) restrictions, restrictions which serve only to demonstrate how out-of-touch that particular bureaucracy is with this technology.
So, I think the NHTSA is a barking up the wrong tree. Mandate GPS use training in driver education and be done with it. Penalizing the bulk of the population that has no problem using GPS successfully for the misdeeds of the few is just bad lawmaking. It will, however, be profitable for the locales that implement such regulation, so I have no doubt that many will.
Women don't fiind endless babble about how terrible the iPhone is to be a turn on.
That's odd: most Android people I know (myself included) don't waste much time in conversation discussing phones, especially with members of the opposite sex, much less something such as the iPhone that we simply could not care less about. It's iUser arrogance to believe that all of us Android users care about the iPhone, feel threatened by it in some way. We don't, and we look down at people who so willingly allow themselves to be technologically shackled. But hey, to each their own.
Matter of established fact, it's the Apple crowd that has always been by far the most vocal. I've been in this business for a long time, before there was an Apple ][. And, since the advent of the Mac, and Jobs' deliberate efforts to encourage class envy to increase sales, it's always been the Apple people that are constantly deriding those using competing products. In the old days, tell a Mac user that his machine is limited because it didn't have any peripheral slots and he would say, "Why would you need them?" Today, ask an iPhone user why his phone won't support tethering, why it is limited to a single GUI, why it won't allow installation of non-Market apps, and he'll say, "Why would you want to do that?" Nothing changes but their underwear, I guess.
I dislike Apple intensely because at one point (decades ago) I made my living coding for Apple systems, and Apple truly was about freedom, openness, and the spirit of the personal computing revolution. Granted, that was Wozniak's influence: Jobs always was a dick. But today they pay lip service to freedom while doing their level best to turn you into a mere consumer of paid media, bought solely from Apple.
No thanks.
Actually, you'll find that the stock Android experience is a. more popular among most users than the likes of Sense and Touchwiz, and b. is becoming more available as carriers are starting to pick up on that. Not to mention that replacing the entire GUI in Android is trivial: go to the Market (pardon me, "Play Store") and pick any one of a dozen or more different user interfaces. Most of them are free, and several simply blow away the stock interface (my Android phone has six different GUIs available at a touch.) You have exactly ONE: the one that Apple gives you. I hope you like it, because that's all you'll ever have.
So far as I'm concerned, that makes you the one stuck with the "crap device", one that is deliberately and with malice aforethought severely limited in scope. You are an Apple user, so I don't expect you to be able to remotely comprehend that, but there it is. You know, in the world of desktop operating systems most people are very open to the idea of choice, of being able to choose from a variety of options. Put an iPhone or Mac in their hands, and suddenly "there can be only one." If that's not a tribute to the power of marketing and general gullibility I don't know what is, but it's entertaining at least. To my fellow Android users, here's something you can try: point out to one of your iPhone-using friends something that Android does better (and there are many.) Watch their eyes bulge as they try to find a way to dispute your claims. Then laugh when they finally come back with, "Okay, so fine it does that... but why would you want to?" Never fails.
Your problem, as with most iUsers, is that you just don't grasp that there is an entire spectrum of Android devices out there, from crap to awesome, rather than just the few models of iPhone with which you are comfortable. You want to make simple, easy comparisons but you just can't do that. All cars are not Lamborghinis you know, and all Android phones are not top-of-the line. From my perspective, that's a good thing because unlike you, I get to pick the features and functions that I want, not what Apple thinks I want.
In any event, because there are so many different Android devices available, you simply cannot make sweeping statements about them without coming off as something of an idiot, as Dr. House would no doubt say if he were here right now.
Now, when it comes to the topic at hand: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were fond of using the phrase "bet the company" on certain initiatives, such as.Net. It sounds like Mr. Hesse is actually doing that.
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don't have a girlfriend, wife won't let me have one ;-)
Oh, you have a wife. I'm sorry.
So...you're doing a cat scan of all electronic devices?
Actually, it was a PET scan.
Yes, I take a similar approach when I travel now, given the insanity at the airports, especially since TSA employees seem to take a liking to my Thinkpad (it gets pulled aside so they can paw through my laptop bag every damn time.) Probably it's because I have a few tools in it, I don't know. Anyway, all they'll ever see is fresh re-image of the OS with a few applications, and none of my work files. When I get where I'm going, I download whatever I need, and when I'm finished I upload any new files and then wipe the machine again. They're more than welcome to power up my computer or image the drive. They're not going to find anything I don't want them to find. That's mostly stuff that I do for work, source code and so forth, that I would be irresponsible to not take some steps to protect. Like you say, it's none of the government's business, and they have always maintained demonstrably poor security.
Cloud storage. Imagine how much data you can store in a hurricane!
So much that you have to serve them off the Tornado web server?
Yes, but the platters are spinning so fast your access time is dramatically reduced.
Cloud storage. Imagine how much data you can store in a hurricane!
Yes, and given the energy release of a hurricane there will be no problem with power for your high-velocity cloud storage system.
Personally, I think the government should broadcast a simple numeric code to make these warnings easy to understand. For example, the code for "complete devastation event" might be 2012.
belief for a layperson is not only sufficient, it is necessary. Consider the major difference in how information is imparted to individuals
Well, yes and no. You're right: at some level it is a matter of trust. Scientists are point-blank not supposed to trust each other, but the end result of the process is supposed to be something that the rest of us can trust.
However, I disagree that your typical "lay person" is fundamentally incapable of distinguishing between what many would themselves agree is irrational, versus that which does have some degree of scientific validation. Especially in the age of the global network where such information, of varying levels of sophistication, is readily available to any who want it. No-one expects non-scientists to run experiments and submit them for peer-review, but there is something to be said for having at least a basic understanding of how science is performed. Evidence of the lack of that understanding presents itself all the time: hell, this ridiculous misuse of the term "scientific theory" just torques me into a pretzel.
This issue is more a matter of whether ordinary citizens can be bothered to make the distinction, to make the effort to learn what science, the scientific method, and applied science mean to their daily lives. Schools are supposed to teach that, and in my day they did, but in today's United States of America they have been falling flat on their faces in that regard.
My early years in school were in the sixties, and the change between then, and now, is substantial (and was painful to watch.) As a child, I and my classmates were taken on regular field trips to laboratories, scientific institutions and manufacturing plants of all kinds, were encouraged to speak to real scientists and engineers. We ended up with a very clear understanding of how progress is made and how the fruits of scientific research improved our standard of living. I firmly believe that had those excellent educational policies continued throughout the anti-science period of the seventies and onward, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
One, when I was 21 (and no cell phone, they didn't have cell phones then.) Another when I was forty-something: a delivery-van bolted out of an alleyway and broadsided me.
... but then again I'm on the expressway at rush hour twice a day. And most of those near-misses are with people who have a cell phone jammed into their ears. It's like navigating a moving minefield.
... it's just that under certain circumstances we can be required to temporarily grant the right-of-way to others. That's about the only way a traffic control system could work.
Near accidents? All the time
The reality is, cell phone use while driving should be avoided. Just as eating, fondling your girlfriends breasts, twiddling with your car radio, and any number of other distracting activities should also be avoided while behind the wheel. The human brain point-blank does not multitask well: the problem is that many people's brains think that they do. Numerous studies have shown that they're wrong.
And I believe you meant "right of way." Interestingly, in the U.S. we all have a Constitutionally-protect right to travel, so we all have right-of-way
It would almost make you think that the politicians that were essentially calling GWB a war criminal might have been a bit less than wholly honest.
Well, sure. Congress gave him the power to do what he did: they could have reined him in, but they chose to go along for the ride.
Double-whoosh. The second poster caught the original poster's drift, and merely expanded upon it. Apparently you missed that.
Penalizing the bulk of the population that has no problem using GPS successfully for the misdeeds of the few is just bad lawmaking.
Penalizing the honest/competent/responsible/etc is the goal of most laws.
I'd go further and say that extracting wealth from the honest/competent/responsible segment of the population is the real goal.
I think "believe in evolution" would be better phrased as "accept the scientific validity of evolution."
The whole point of this discussion is that belief is not sufficient.
Some thirty years ago, I was doing software development for a number of research outfits (neurological data acquisition, that sort of thing.) I recall one conversation between a lead research scientist and his division chief. They were working on a rather large grant proposal at the time. The dialog revolved around a key dataset that had some points that didn't support their conclusions. The chief was suggesting that they simply remove the (ahem!) "bad" data from the proposal. The scientist, who was becoming visibly upset has his boss went on, finally exploded with "you can't just throw away data you don't like!"
The resulting argument was Biblical. One the one side was the bureaucrat wanting to make sure that they had enough funds to continue their research (and remember, the institution took 80% right off the top.) On the other was a topnotch scientist only concerned with the quality of his work and that he not be subject to charges of fraud.
I was just a fly on the wall but I learned a lot that day.
Surgeries have always been 3D. A 2D surgery doesn't do much on a three dimensional patient.
True, although after my back surgery last year I was left feeling a little flat.
I use my phone's navigation app, mostly because it can update traffic and road conditions ahead. But I position it where it isn't distracting, is easy to get to and I don't mess with it once I enter a detestation.
Well, I won't argue with your need to go to places that you detest, but I agree about phone navigation. I just stuff it in my shirt pocket once I'm on the road: I have the turn-by-turn coming out of my car's speakers. Works very well, and it's only the occasional situation (maybe an odd intersection with streets coming in a funny angles) where I need to look at the display.
To be blunt, how would you have the least freaking clue whether or not it has a "surprisingly minimal effect on driving."?
And maybe that's true for him, although I doubt it. And if you were to present a video of his minimally-affected driving to him, he would probably be, well ... surprised. In reality, most people believe that whatever stupid things they habitually do behind the wheel have a "surprisingly minimal effect" on their driving, and will defend their opinion of themselves and their supernatural abilities to the death.
Literally.
Boggles the mind. Truly, it does.
But anything that's going to blank the very screen I would find most useful on me when I most need it would be utterly retarded.
3. I'm from the government ... and I'm here to help you.
Or people will just move back to using portable devices instead of ones that are part of the car.
I pipe the audio output of my smartphone through my car's speakers. I also use it to listen to music on occasion: the music is automatically paused while the GPS is talking so there is no confusion. As it happens, I normally use Google Nav, and the voice works well enough that I rarely need the display. So well, in fact, that I usually just leave the phone in my pocket. If you do need to constantly look at the screen, it probably means your navigation system is poorly designed, or perhaps you are just a very insecure person. My girlfriend has dedicated GPS from Magellan, and it's turn-by-turn likewise works very well (somewhat better than Google's system in many cases.)
I agree with some other posters: get the units with low-quality software off the market. The government would do better mandating improved functionality rather than imposing arbitrary (and fundamentally dangerous) restrictions, restrictions which serve only to demonstrate how out-of-touch that particular bureaucracy is with this technology.
So, I think the NHTSA is a barking up the wrong tree. Mandate GPS use training in driver education and be done with it. Penalizing the bulk of the population that has no problem using GPS successfully for the misdeeds of the few is just bad lawmaking. It will, however, be profitable for the locales that implement such regulation, so I have no doubt that many will.
T-Mobile is GSM sprint is cdma so that won't work
Yep. That sucks, assuming he was on Sprint to begin with, which is why I asked.
Women don't fiind endless babble about how terrible the iPhone is to be a turn on.
That's odd: most Android people I know (myself included) don't waste much time in conversation discussing phones, especially with members of the opposite sex, much less something such as the iPhone that we simply could not care less about. It's iUser arrogance to believe that all of us Android users care about the iPhone, feel threatened by it in some way. We don't, and we look down at people who so willingly allow themselves to be technologically shackled. But hey, to each their own.
Matter of established fact, it's the Apple crowd that has always been by far the most vocal. I've been in this business for a long time, before there was an Apple ][. And, since the advent of the Mac, and Jobs' deliberate efforts to encourage class envy to increase sales, it's always been the Apple people that are constantly deriding those using competing products. In the old days, tell a Mac user that his machine is limited because it didn't have any peripheral slots and he would say, "Why would you need them?" Today, ask an iPhone user why his phone won't support tethering, why it is limited to a single GUI, why it won't allow installation of non-Market apps, and he'll say, "Why would you want to do that?" Nothing changes but their underwear, I guess.
I dislike Apple intensely because at one point (decades ago) I made my living coding for Apple systems, and Apple truly was about freedom, openness, and the spirit of the personal computing revolution. Granted, that was Wozniak's influence: Jobs always was a dick. But today they pay lip service to freedom while doing their level best to turn you into a mere consumer of paid media, bought solely from Apple. No thanks.
I bought my 4G phone almost 2 years ago and have yet to see any 4G service. Yet all the other carries seem to have it...
Who's your provider? I would say come over to T-Mobile (they'll let you just buy a SIM and drop it in) but I don't think your spectrum will match.
Actually, you'll find that the stock Android experience is a. more popular among most users than the likes of Sense and Touchwiz, and b. is becoming more available as carriers are starting to pick up on that. Not to mention that replacing the entire GUI in Android is trivial: go to the Market (pardon me, "Play Store") and pick any one of a dozen or more different user interfaces. Most of them are free, and several simply blow away the stock interface (my Android phone has six different GUIs available at a touch.) You have exactly ONE: the one that Apple gives you. I hope you like it, because that's all you'll ever have.
... but why would you want to?" Never fails.
So far as I'm concerned, that makes you the one stuck with the "crap device", one that is deliberately and with malice aforethought severely limited in scope. You are an Apple user, so I don't expect you to be able to remotely comprehend that, but there it is. You know, in the world of desktop operating systems most people are very open to the idea of choice, of being able to choose from a variety of options. Put an iPhone or Mac in their hands, and suddenly "there can be only one." If that's not a tribute to the power of marketing and general gullibility I don't know what is, but it's entertaining at least. To my fellow Android users, here's something you can try: point out to one of your iPhone-using friends something that Android does better (and there are many.) Watch their eyes bulge as they try to find a way to dispute your claims. Then laugh when they finally come back with, "Okay, so fine it does that
Your problem, as with most iUsers, is that you just don't grasp that there is an entire spectrum of Android devices out there, from crap to awesome, rather than just the few models of iPhone with which you are comfortable. You want to make simple, easy comparisons but you just can't do that. All cars are not Lamborghinis you know, and all Android phones are not top-of-the line. From my perspective, that's a good thing because unlike you, I get to pick the features and functions that I want, not what Apple thinks I want.
In any event, because there are so many different Android devices available, you simply cannot make sweeping statements about them without coming off as something of an idiot, as Dr. House would no doubt say if he were here right now.
Maybe Android users aren't in debt because they don't spend much money on dating.
What?
A contrived negative Apple comment. Who would have thought?
Dude, the GP just defined Apple's entire business model. Seriously, that's it in a nutshell.
Furthermore, like it or not, Apple is deserving of much approbation, far more than they get on this site.
This is how you utilize a first post?
What a waste.
.Net. It sounds like Mr. Hesse is actually doing that.
Now, when it comes to the topic at hand: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were fond of using the phrase "bet the company" on certain initiatives, such as
Is this some sort of encryption program embedding data in slashdot?
If morons masquerading as Anonymous Cowards can serve as encryption engines, then yes it is.