Lame - most people click on same things; years ago somebody did this on a website along with stats on the clicks and you could easily see that people picked the same stuff just like they do with passwords... except passwords are far more flexible than a few x/y coordinates.. sure you could save a ton of them trying to make a simple signature which would help greatly but it wouldn't be any greater than a signature, which is something that doesn't compare to a decent password.
I'm sure we will hear of people having to calibrate their touch screens, wash their hands, configure a new touch screen, or leave wear marks on their login screen. At least with a keyboard you touch it to use it for a lot of purposes besides login and because its a simple array of buttons there is less to go wrong or configure (try configuring something when you can't login.)
I don't think you realize what science actually is... or the moderator who gave you a point. Have we gotten so bad?
Science is a philosophy (there is even a college course on it I recommend you take.) USA high school science (as i've experienced) is piss poor; that was NOT science, they missed the whole point with all that memorization "learning".
You don't need theories before you smash shit together! Observation doesn't require forethought! So astrophysics is not real science then? Medicine? Wind tunnels? Penicillin was science-- that discovery was an accident but the observation and follow up was science-- no premeditated theory was required (it was an accident) and why it worked so well wasn't understood but that didn't stop it from being used heavily or deter science from trying to come up with theories on how it works. Ever do dull lab work like collect and process data?? That is not science?? One doesn't need to have a clue what is going to happen or even understand what is happening! (just gather data, somebody else can/does theorize it later.)
What was all that groundwork of centuries of uninformed observation which led to the formulation of theories and laws which informed subsequent generations enough be able to make SOME decent guesses?? A great deal of science describes observation and is INDUCTIVE reasoning (which is not deductive, arguably it is not even logical.)
You only need theories explaining what happened which are TESTABLE at the later stages of the process. They need not even be testable today because reasonable scientists will leave open the possibility somebody will devise a test and that it may prove the theory. Quantum Physics is loaded with such situations.
I had a ford that couldn't go 200 miles without needing a refill. I got about 35mpg from it but most people these days would probably get 25 (its best speed was 58, 65 lowered millage by about 10 and people seem to drive at 70 a lot...)
Not officially, but China already has its hands in the chamber; this use of this is a nice backdoor to get into well connected powerful people in the USA. It would be a wise move for China but other parties bouncing off a computer in China could be doing it as well; same motivation either way.
You know, the CIA has been doing plenty of operations for the benefit of US corporations for over a generation now. (you look it up, it happened and likely still happens. Wikileaks only covered the state dept messing around with others; just imagine what the CIA leak would have looked like given what is known about their past!)
I want this cold-war style phone war to end in everybody getting sued into oblivion! Maybe the crooks in government will fix the patent system when their kids can't buy a new smart phone anymore.
As a mozilla user from way back, I've been heavily using it from the beginning. Many popular complaints are partially if not completely true. Since 3.6 the memory use has gone nuts and while I don't mind a doubling of RAM use or how it ignores the cap I put into the about:config I DO MIND how it has since version 4 used so much RAM and then gets slow and locks up for seconds while it manages all that cached data.
The purpose was to get private inventions to the world by documenting and even sharing them while remaining TEMPORARILY private. These "IP" laws were created as an incentive to develop open source works; the reward was temporary control over the implementations of the intangible "source" ideas. Obviously the system is not required as mankind progressed greatly before such incentive systems were created and today millions develop open source for little to no rewards and a few profit directly.
Current progress came from rapid population growth and massive widespread education; one can't credit the I.P. system for all this success. In some ways we'd have progressed slower and in other ways we'd have moved faster. For example, light bulb IP was used to force the industry into making bulbs that wear out on purpose and do not run the 100 years that they once did (about 100 years ago when such bulbs were being made; with much lower profit potential...)
Parallel: the "war" on drugs, this isn't likely to come out different.
Drug laws have gone so far and we don't care because we are not "those people" just as a majority today probably is unaware of how much they violate these petty unimportant "I.P." laws or do they realize just how much enforcement can impact their lives negatively despite perhaps not being one of "those people." Drug laws are abused and built upon in other areas that mess with most people's lives. One example could be the ban on industrial hemp which makes stuff wear out faster and encourages the use of plastics (for strength) which are a big source of the microscopic plastic in our water, food, and yes, running around inside our bodies being "harmless" while we continue to wonder about modern health issues... BPA -its what is for dinner? FYI - its not just plastic bags in the ocean showing up in things.
Voting system/laws are borked. Result? We can't elect the change needed to fix anything even if you somehow fixed the money problem (lawyers find loopholes; if there are none, they punch holes in the system. Hell, the USA says Tomatoes are vegetables!) Can we fix the money system or the voting system 1st? or neither as has been the case for decades.
Week-long voting periods. Any rank-order voting system would be better than we have today. NO computers in voting. Saved verifiable paper records. Organized election fraud is made legally treason...
Rather than go on, perhaps we should ponder-- did the system work already? did it? If so, then the idiot citizens created this problem thereby being directly responsible for the government they got... Sure its not working today but if you repaired it - just how long do you think it could last if the idiot citizens created the problem to begin with?? Not long. Ben Franklin predicted our fall into despotism because that is what happens to all democracies; success accelerates the process -- its a wonder we didn't fall sooner (came close at least a few times.)
Funny how art imitates life... Typical classic science fiction movies (not modern movies:) the scientist(s) get dismissed or ignored by the antagonists who end up WRONG with big consequences... The problem is resolved with an "I told you so" moment(s) followed by application of the discovered truth(s) to save the day. Usually some heroic grunt does it and gets most the glory. Moral: be a heroic grunt who listens and applies science. --- The negative projections and theories from the actual scientists largely have been ignored for the mild stuff because people can't handle the truth-- even the mild things are easily fought with industry propaganda in some nations.
Reality has been running closer to the more negative side of the theories and not in the middle. It makes one wonder that if cultural/human bias causes such dire science to be skewed towards a more positive, more conservative model for many reasons-- largest most likely being as not being dismissed as an alarmist (since prestige and credibility are the currency of professional science... Safer to underestimate and be in error than overestimate.)
This was a law passed by congress; the enforcement of that law is assigned to somebody, most likely the FCC. FCC may only be for management of the people's limited radio waves it still has been assigned multiple tasks by law and sometimes it oversteps and sometimes it pushes around cable as well.
This is why I oppose the FCC doing net neutrality, because they lack the necessary power to pull it off and if they do, they are weak and can easily be undone with some presidential appointments. LAWS are not so easy to undo once passed which is why we need a law passed.
I wish I had mod points. Time has been just another crap media outlet for so long why should we even mention them anymore?? I only see them in the dentist's office where I skip over them for the one on wood working.
A nanny state does everything for your own good as the excuse 4 making you "behave." This is to protect the rest of us citizens from fools putting our lives at risk.
I've almost been in a bunch of accidents because some fool on their phone. I don't pity the fool;-) who smashes their car up -- and they deserve it! The rest of us do not.
A live passenger reacts to trouble as well; this boosts the odds of avoiding trouble significantly. This especially is the case when the other person is also a driver sitting in the front (think about it.)
The closest to death I've been was a woman in a van full of brats try to plow me over on my bike as I crossed in front of her in broad daylight. I think the brats should be muzzled before a hands free phone is banned... However, the GUI for these car devices are HORRIBLE and I have to risk my life to operate the car stereo which looks like its designed to confuse you (it is actually designed to distract you in the store.) We need some regulations on that crap. Bring back the knobs and radio buttons I don't need to SEE to operate. Car interfaces should be regulated as usable by the BLIND!! If a BLIND person can operate my car junk then it should be safe enough for me to use-- when I'm driving I should be considered blind to everything but the road.
I thought you didn't get a public defender in some states unless you can show you don't have any money-- if you have money you have to spend it; if you are broke enough then you get a public defender. Or maybe that was another country I was reading about...
Emergent patterns-- like how geese or ducks fly in a V shape-- there is no planning, no thought, no leadership by the group to pick that shape, its the nature of the situation that produces the outcome.
It is common for humans to think that everything has some sort of master plan or leader or group thinking behind it. Yes this bias heavily shows up in argument for the existence of God(s).
Conspiracy is more common that people "think," that is, than they are socially conditioned to dismiss, because thought is really not part of it for most people on this topic. The word is often incorrectly applied because humans tend to think there is intelligence behind things when there is none (especially something complex.)
Multiple conspiring groups can work together and appear like some bigger conspiracy when they are just ducks in a row. People will tend to jump to the conclusion there are leaders or planned conspiracies at most/all levels -- I've seen people puzzled when 2 opposing groups will join together to protest something; like some master planner suckered the two sides to agree on something when one group may not even have known the other group was coming. It could just be a bunch of different flocks creating emergent patterns.
The mob mentality can come into play as well with no real leader in charge (or if there is just 1 leader) it doesn't function in a way that it can be considered a full conspiracy. Once in formation it becomes easy to keep flying with the group than break away and individuals can end up going places they'd never go otherwise; inhibitions can break down; somebody does something stupid, then the barriers are lowered and others follow in the wake etc..
Understanding of such human group behaviors can be utilized and exploited (if >=2 people plan to do this then that IS a conspiracy) but the group's action is not a conspiracy even though one may be heading it-- and its not really the head of it; just herding the group with a form of working control. This kind of stuff does happen and its easier to spot when you understand how it works.
North Korea has routine blackouts as well as air raids (fake or drill doesn't matter) 'caused' by the USA. BTW, some USA planes that crashed during the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War" which didn't contain bombs but instead contained diseases which still are causing North Koreans to get sick to this day!
Sometimes I think Fox News is run by former North Korean newsmen.
I disagree Apple's 1:1 metaphors are "bad" in that for somebody who has no clue it can be useful; however, this is 2011! Everybody worth bothering with has some computer experience; and the kiddies are more likely to figure out a calendar app than have even seen a real paper organizer! "Radio Buttons" are a learned widget on their own today, the kids haven't even seen the radios that have those buttons!
GUI design today is way way behind. Most the work is back in the 80s-90s trying to get people using computers. Wrong target demographic for today! These GUI changes should involve ways to let old users remain comfortable-- like loading keyboard shortcuts from previous versions (or how about NOT changing them around?) In many cases, software like OFFICE software hasn't done much in decades and really should be cheap and quite uniform and unchanged. It only needs updates to port it, the main feature set hasn't changed for decades. Many businesses wise enough to stay where it works are still running decade+ old software (maybe even emulating.)
Sure, most of this is the planned obsolescence for the computer industry which keeps people employed simply for the sake of employment. Don't just maintain the software, add new bugs (aka features.) Once its reasonably perfected, it should possibly go open source and for contract maintenance work... Patents eventually go public domain and copyrite used to (until Disney can't get "buy" extensions.) Perhaps software should have more protections at the price of going open after X years?
Open isn't the fix-- look at Gnome and how that upset people; not enough developers to fork it but it sounds like there are enough users if they could the majority would fork it.
No I don't believe so, after the trial has concluded the judge is not allowed to mess with the jury because that is a form of tampering - this is why jury nullification is possible. If a judge could punish a jury member after the a verdict was given that judge could make shit up to punish juries who don't conclude what the judge wants. Plenty of judges are quite untouchable within their domain and could/would abuse such a power.
NO, the hugely successful iOS products will shortly convert the whole industry into copy cat knock offs; some of which will surpass it in various ways (depending on what certain customers want, not what 1 product Apple offers.)
Apple can own the various physical techniques which the others have worked around alternatives already (or pay apple or sony... unless there is a 3rd form of touch screen tech out there own by another already.)
I'm 150% behind Apple on this-- PLEASE use software patents to foobar the industry!!
Somebody PLEASE patent online campaign fund raising using software! We need a lot of horrible examples to get this beast slain.
Java is closer to pseudo code and has a low barrier of entry for beginners so you can have a lot of bad programmers cheaply. Less easy languages require a higher experience or skill set which filters out or highlights the weak programmers.
Do we want things so easy that somebody who can make some HTML thinks they are a programmer?? Sure there are some benefits for ease of use but there ARE downsides as well. Java may remove the top C programming errors but it allows in a lot more bad programmers.
Slashdot Mirror
Lame - most people click on same things; years ago somebody did this on a website along with stats on the clicks and you could easily see that people picked the same stuff just like they do with passwords... except passwords are far more flexible than a few x/y coordinates.. sure you could save a ton of them trying to make a simple signature which would help greatly but it wouldn't be any greater than a signature, which is something that doesn't compare to a decent password.
I'm sure we will hear of people having to calibrate their touch screens, wash their hands, configure a new touch screen, or leave wear marks on their login screen. At least with a keyboard you touch it to use it for a lot of purposes besides login and because its a simple array of buttons there is less to go wrong or configure (try configuring something when you can't login.)
I don't think you realize what science actually is... or the moderator who gave you a point. Have we gotten so bad?
Science is a philosophy (there is even a college course on it I recommend you take.) USA high school science (as i've experienced) is piss poor; that was NOT science, they missed the whole point with all that memorization "learning".
You don't need theories before you smash shit together! Observation doesn't require forethought! So astrophysics is not real science then? Medicine? Wind tunnels? Penicillin was science-- that discovery was an accident but the observation and follow up was science-- no premeditated theory was required (it was an accident) and why it worked so well wasn't understood but that didn't stop it from being used heavily or deter science from trying to come up with theories on how it works. Ever do dull lab work like collect and process data?? That is not science?? One doesn't need to have a clue what is going to happen or even understand what is happening! (just gather data, somebody else can/does theorize it later.)
What was all that groundwork of centuries of uninformed observation which led to the formulation of theories and laws which informed subsequent generations enough be able to make SOME decent guesses?? A great deal of science describes observation and is INDUCTIVE reasoning (which is not deductive, arguably it is not even logical.)
You only need theories explaining what happened which are TESTABLE at the later stages of the process. They need not even be testable today because reasonable scientists will leave open the possibility somebody will devise a test and that it may prove the theory. Quantum Physics is loaded with such situations.
I had a ford that couldn't go 200 miles without needing a refill. I got about 35mpg from it but most people these days would probably get 25 (its best speed was 58, 65 lowered millage by about 10 and people seem to drive at 70 a lot...)
Not officially, but China already has its hands in the chamber; this use of this is a nice backdoor to get into well connected powerful people in the USA. It would be a wise move for China but other parties bouncing off a computer in China could be doing it as well; same motivation either way.
You know, the CIA has been doing plenty of operations for the benefit of US corporations for over a generation now. (you look it up, it happened and likely still happens. Wikileaks only covered the state dept messing around with others; just imagine what the CIA leak would have looked like given what is known about their past!)
I want this cold-war style phone war to end in everybody getting sued into oblivion! Maybe the crooks in government will fix the patent system when their kids can't buy a new smart phone anymore.
As a mozilla user from way back, I've been heavily using it from the beginning. Many popular complaints are partially if not completely true. Since 3.6 the memory use has gone nuts and while I don't mind a doubling of RAM use or how it ignores the cap I put into the about:config I DO MIND how it has since version 4 used so much RAM and then gets slow and locks up for seconds while it manages all that cached data.
Have 3 versions of the software vote so then the 1 bug can not show up in all 3 versions! (kidding)
The purpose was to get private inventions to the world by documenting and even sharing them while remaining TEMPORARILY private. These "IP" laws were created as an incentive to develop open source works; the reward was temporary control over the implementations of the intangible "source" ideas. Obviously the system is not required as mankind progressed greatly before such incentive systems were created and today millions develop open source for little to no rewards and a few profit directly.
Current progress came from rapid population growth and massive widespread education; one can't credit the I.P. system for all this success. In some ways we'd have progressed slower and in other ways we'd have moved faster. For example, light bulb IP was used to force the industry into making bulbs that wear out on purpose and do not run the 100 years that they once did (about 100 years ago when such bulbs were being made; with much lower profit potential...)
Parallel: the "war" on drugs, this isn't likely to come out different.
Drug laws have gone so far and we don't care because we are not "those people" just as a majority today probably is unaware of how much they violate these petty unimportant "I.P." laws or do they realize just how much enforcement can impact their lives negatively despite perhaps not being one of "those people." Drug laws are abused and built upon in other areas that mess with most people's lives. One example could be the ban on industrial hemp which makes stuff wear out faster and encourages the use of plastics (for strength) which are a big source of the microscopic plastic in our water, food, and yes, running around inside our bodies being "harmless" while we continue to wonder about modern health issues... BPA -its what is for dinner? FYI - its not just plastic bags in the ocean showing up in things.
Voting system/laws are borked. Result? We can't elect the change needed to fix anything even if you somehow fixed the money problem (lawyers find loopholes; if there are none, they punch holes in the system. Hell, the USA says Tomatoes are vegetables!) Can we fix the money system or the voting system 1st? or neither as has been the case for decades.
Week-long voting periods. Any rank-order voting system would be better than we have today. NO computers in voting. Saved verifiable paper records. Organized election fraud is made legally treason...
Rather than go on, perhaps we should ponder-- did the system work already? did it? If so, then the idiot citizens created this problem thereby being directly responsible for the government they got... Sure its not working today but if you repaired it - just how long do you think it could last if the idiot citizens created the problem to begin with?? Not long. Ben Franklin predicted our fall into despotism because that is what happens to all democracies; success accelerates the process -- its a wonder we didn't fall sooner (came close at least a few times.)
The futile path to Utopia is paved through hell.
Funny how art imitates life... Typical classic science fiction movies (not modern movies:) the scientist(s) get dismissed or ignored by the antagonists who end up WRONG with big consequences... The problem is resolved with an "I told you so" moment(s) followed by application of the discovered truth(s) to save the day. Usually some heroic grunt does it and gets most the glory. Moral: be a heroic grunt who listens and applies science.
---
The negative projections and theories from the actual scientists largely have been ignored for the mild stuff because people can't handle the truth-- even the mild things are easily fought with industry propaganda in some nations.
Reality has been running closer to the more negative side of the theories and not in the middle. It makes one wonder that if cultural/human bias causes such dire science to be skewed towards a more positive, more conservative model for many reasons-- largest most likely being as not being dismissed as an alarmist (since prestige and credibility are the currency of professional science... Safer to underestimate and be in error than overestimate.)
University of Chicago economics is more of a church indoctrinating new members to their religion.
This was a law passed by congress; the enforcement of that law is assigned to somebody, most likely the FCC. FCC may only be for management of the people's limited radio waves it still has been assigned multiple tasks by law and sometimes it oversteps and sometimes it pushes around cable as well.
This is why I oppose the FCC doing net neutrality, because they lack the necessary power to pull it off and if they do, they are weak and can easily be undone with some presidential appointments. LAWS are not so easy to undo once passed which is why we need a law passed.
I wish I had mod points. Time has been just another crap media outlet for so long why should we even mention them anymore?? I only see them in the dentist's office where I skip over them for the one on wood working.
A nanny state does everything for your own good as the excuse 4 making you "behave." This is to protect the rest of us citizens from fools putting our lives at risk.
I've almost been in a bunch of accidents because some fool on their phone. I don't pity the fool ;-) who smashes their car up -- and they deserve it! The rest of us do not.
A live passenger reacts to trouble as well; this boosts the odds of avoiding trouble significantly. This especially is the case when the other person is also a driver sitting in the front (think about it.)
The closest to death I've been was a woman in a van full of brats try to plow me over on my bike as I crossed in front of her in broad daylight. I think the brats should be muzzled before a hands free phone is banned... However, the GUI for these car devices are HORRIBLE and I have to risk my life to operate the car stereo which looks like its designed to confuse you (it is actually designed to distract you in the store.) We need some regulations on that crap. Bring back the knobs and radio buttons I don't need to SEE to operate. Car interfaces should be regulated as usable by the BLIND!! If a BLIND person can operate my car junk then it should be safe enough for me to use-- when I'm driving I should be considered blind to everything but the road.
mod parent up.
I thought you didn't get a public defender in some states unless you can show you don't have any money-- if you have money you have to spend it; if you are broke enough then you get a public defender. Or maybe that was another country I was reading about...
Tort reform means that a class action may not do much harm to their business if they can make enough cash before losing such a case.
Emergent patterns-- like how geese or ducks fly in a V shape-- there is no planning, no thought, no leadership by the group to pick that shape, its the nature of the situation that produces the outcome.
It is common for humans to think that everything has some sort of master plan or leader or group thinking behind it. Yes this bias heavily shows up in argument for the existence of God(s).
Conspiracy is more common that people "think," that is, than they are socially conditioned to dismiss, because thought is really not part of it for most people on this topic. The word is often incorrectly applied because humans tend to think there is intelligence behind things when there is none (especially something complex.)
Multiple conspiring groups can work together and appear like some bigger conspiracy when they are just ducks in a row. People will tend to jump to the conclusion there are leaders or planned conspiracies at most/all levels -- I've seen people puzzled when 2 opposing groups will join together to protest something; like some master planner suckered the two sides to agree on something when one group may not even have known the other group was coming. It could just be a bunch of different flocks creating emergent patterns.
The mob mentality can come into play as well with no real leader in charge (or if there is just 1 leader) it doesn't function in a way that it can be considered a full conspiracy. Once in formation it becomes easy to keep flying with the group than break away and individuals can end up going places they'd never go otherwise; inhibitions can break down; somebody does something stupid, then the barriers are lowered and others follow in the wake etc..
Understanding of such human group behaviors can be utilized and exploited (if >=2 people plan to do this then that IS a conspiracy) but the group's action is not a conspiracy even though one may be heading it-- and its not really the head of it; just herding the group with a form of working control. This kind of stuff does happen and its easier to spot when you understand how it works.
North Korea has routine blackouts as well as air raids (fake or drill doesn't matter) 'caused' by the USA.
BTW, some USA planes that crashed during the "Victorious Fatherland Liberation War" which didn't contain bombs but instead contained diseases which still are causing North Koreans to get sick to this day!
Sometimes I think Fox News is run by former North Korean newsmen.
I disagree Apple's 1:1 metaphors are "bad" in that for somebody who has no clue it can be useful; however, this is 2011! Everybody worth bothering with has some computer experience; and the kiddies are more likely to figure out a calendar app than have even seen a real paper organizer! "Radio Buttons" are a learned widget on their own today, the kids haven't even seen the radios that have those buttons!
GUI design today is way way behind. Most the work is back in the 80s-90s trying to get people using computers. Wrong target demographic for today! These GUI changes should involve ways to let old users remain comfortable-- like loading keyboard shortcuts from previous versions (or how about NOT changing them around?) In many cases, software like OFFICE software hasn't done much in decades and really should be cheap and quite uniform and unchanged. It only needs updates to port it, the main feature set hasn't changed for decades. Many businesses wise enough to stay where it works are still running decade+ old software (maybe even emulating.)
Sure, most of this is the planned obsolescence for the computer industry which keeps people employed simply for the sake of employment. Don't just maintain the software, add new bugs (aka features.) Once its reasonably perfected, it should possibly go open source and for contract maintenance work... Patents eventually go public domain and copyrite used to (until Disney can't get "buy" extensions.) Perhaps software should have more protections at the price of going open after X years?
Open isn't the fix-- look at Gnome and how that upset people; not enough developers to fork it but it sounds like there are enough users if they could the majority would fork it.
No I don't believe so, after the trial has concluded the judge is not allowed to mess with the jury because that is a form of tampering - this is why jury nullification is possible. If a judge could punish a jury member after the a verdict was given that judge could make shit up to punish juries who don't conclude what the judge wants. Plenty of judges are quite untouchable within their domain and could/would abuse such a power.
NO, the hugely successful iOS products will shortly convert the whole industry into copy cat knock offs; some of which will surpass it in various ways (depending on what certain customers want, not what 1 product Apple offers.)
Apple can own the various physical techniques which the others have worked around alternatives already (or pay apple or sony... unless there is a 3rd form of touch screen tech out there own by another already.)
I'm 150% behind Apple on this-- PLEASE use software patents to foobar the industry!!
Somebody PLEASE patent online campaign fund raising using software! We need a lot of horrible examples to get this beast slain.
One plugin to rule them all, one plugin to find them,
One plugin to bring them all and in the "sandbox" hack them.
Genetic defect; or strongly conditioned behavior that over-rides biology.
Java is closer to pseudo code and has a low barrier of entry for beginners so you can have a lot of bad programmers cheaply. Less easy languages require a higher experience or skill set which filters out or highlights the weak programmers.
Do we want things so easy that somebody who can make some HTML thinks they are a programmer?? Sure there are some benefits for ease of use but there ARE downsides as well. Java may remove the top C programming errors but it allows in a lot more bad programmers.