Just like the POLL TAX on voting; government has undermined the right to gather by requiring permits. Police may not show up and cause trouble but you could be in trouble for unlawful assembly and whatever else they can make up.
You are required by a protest TAX to ask permission to exercise your rights and they CAN turn down your permit or move you to a free speech zone and charge too much "processing fees" - being totally unreasonable under the laws. We'll need a big fight to undo it just like there was for the poll tax on voting and the other laws that anybody with a brain could honestly see were just legal games to hack away at our rights. This is what judges are supposed to be doing; cutting out the BS that is just playing legal games to defeat laws and our rights not being so literal minded computers will soon be able to replace them.
The one party system for recording applies to MOST states; there are just a few messed up corrupt states where everyone must be informed. Google around and find out if your state is a one party or all party recording state.
Real power exists in the minds of the subjugated! Power is given not taken. Total defeat means breaking the will of the people to resist. Winning wars has always been about subjugation.
Their will can not be broken by any means ever employed in the history of warfare; you can kill 100% of them and turn the nation into crater but you will have NOT broken their will and therefore your mission/purpose will have been a complete failure. The ONLY way to "win" against an enemy that will not yield is to redefine success (such as genocide or a retreat covered by narrow goals.) This is why there was that stuff about "winning their hearts and minds" has been out there - not to raise the level of discourse but because the officials were forced to allude to concepts they usually ignore publicly; furthermore, its timing was a concession at the difficulty of the situation which the clever insurgents noticed.
Aside: Mind control has never been employed full scale and for the good of humanity a completely successful method will never be discovered so that answer is not a possible option.
I'm for equality but I'm NOT for some of the moves trying to implement it. We are just an election away from another crook heading the FCC or an organized group of nuts sending in letters and skewing the org over 4 letter words etc. Furthermore, if the FCC can regulate internet over private communication lines this includes HBO etc unless explicitly exempted. What happens when TV goes to IP? I object to their powers on TV airwaves.
Free speech is the opposite of being free from offense!
What the FCC should be doing is creating a digital ratings system that works instead of this marketing based industry tripe we have today. Help people protect their kids and shield their fragile minds from offensive material but NOT IMPOSE limitations (other than fraudulent ratings and not making ratings mandatory.) Children's programming would have ratings or otherwise not be seen by parents blocking unrated material. This could extend to the web as well; sure it limits the web for children - that is a parents choice to make. Adult programming could allow viewers to blank out graphic scenes or skip to only the sex or violence scenes... Yes, I'm saying we should also have an optional ratings track with timecode; I couldn't care less about artistic integrity! They can't stop me from skipping chapters or skipping their whole "artwork."
I don't like the Internet Super Highway thing but it fits quite well. The highway system works pretty well and government did that and still does MOST of it. Sometimes they mess up largely due to their own citizens neglect of their duties... but overall they do quite well.
Nothing says that we can't have government run internet everywhere like we do with the roads. HELL, they run all those wires down the public land of the roadways! There are many ways payment can be done for it. Also, private business can use it freely without discrimination. My local city could provide poor DNS service or I could pay for some or use OpenDNS. The city could also do a simple DHCP server. ISPs are largely USELESS outside of the connection; even more so with IPv6. We've seen the silly games of multiple ISPs over the same wire from DSL and a little with cable but I see no reason we can not do that over a public connection. Me, I'd set myself up as an ISP because they do nothing for me I can not do myself. It's like paying a toll to drive down the street.... oh wait, some idiotic places have done that!
The standard event model allows javascript to trigger events such as keystrokes.
Its easy to see why a browser obsessed with speed would just forward the API call to the internal event model. I can totally see the appeal and instinctive reaction to a situation like this; its clean, fast and simple coding - security is not often a big goal when you are initially just trying to get something working; even so, this could get missed by multiple eyes... Plus this is not part of webkit - its bridging the engine to the GUI; which is an unusual situation compared to the bulk of code - all the hard work is in the engine this just ties that to a GUI, quite likely there is a separation between working groups - obviously there is one since the engine is open source and the GUI is not. Their job is to bridge and probably do not get the level of attention as other aspects of the program.
I'm not letting them off the hook, this should have be caught within 1 version or during a security audit if there was one... and if there was: 1) was the attention given to the engine only? 2) do these people work on the code so they get tied up fixing bugs instead of just logging all the ones they uncover? (a lack of specialization)
Exactly! This has to be one of the BIGGEST misunderstandings over averages (means) I've ever seen. It has wide reaching impact as well. It gives people a false notion that modern times have extended our lives greatly or that poor nations have people who do not live long, etc. The perception has wide reaching impact. Those starving diseased places in the world don't actually have a whole lot less of a lifespan than we think they do - they just have huge child mortality rates knocking it down for the most part - the war torn places have an impact too but it is not as great as the hugely skewing child death rates. Just fixing up the birth process brings up the stat in large ways; although, again you are then focusing effort based upon a misunderstanding of averages instead of working on more important factors which simply lack the pull on the numbers. It also undermines the belief that modern medicine is as great as we think it is... not completely, but it doesn't look as great as the numbers make it look... so we get a few more years out of it...at huge massive expense... alters one's perspective a little bit.
I think the main reason for the change was marketing - people respond to shiny things more than matte things. its evolutionary and we've not lost it from the fish -- who we attract to our hooks. Its used on products and packaging.
One could say many women use shiny things to catch men; some ear rings even look like fishing lures and the body piercings... well those make it look like they got hooked themselves and escaped... (notice how they area almost always shiny)
Smith has been good but to me has gone down a little from the start; I'd like more baker.
This is minor stuff-- what bothers me is the final season shows and Christmas specials which try to always top or cook up a crazy death of everything and all times and all parallel universes etc.... They stretch that too far and more each time they do it - like a Hollywood sequel... Christmas specials should never actually have anything to do with the holiday (they seemed to have noticed this problem.)
Its getting too melodramatic and mushy on these story ark endings as well; this last one really pushed it trying to find a way out of an impossible mess at the end with an extremely unlikely trap. Place him into an unmonitored prison cell with his toys-- anyone think of james bond...(or Austin Powers?) Don't get me started on the carebear resolution to it. The magical way they brought back The Master for the end of season 4 was just stupid. (how about a non linear encounter with The Master before he died??)
Its as if the dramatic situations are the point and the sci-fi is only an after thought and this is becoming too neglected (at least star trek always made an effort on that even if the story sucked) The old doctor series drew from short story sci-fi and even had guest writers- they have had some great new material, don't get me wrong - plenty of rehash room - but some episodes were just messed up-- WW2 planes in space... the UK on an endangered space whale? WTF? (ok, the 1st part of that one was good, but it needed the other half rewritten.)
PLUS it would be nice if the UK was not the center of the universe! (SOME bias is ok) - the old doctors I watched traveled to more places and I was just fine with all the humanoids and recycled UK sets. There is fan fiction ideas already; plenty of repeating themes to borrow ideas from --- star trek for example! (just spoof trek; everybody would enjoy that better.) At least with a form of history reset they can ignore a lot of previous shows.
The most out of touch with reality is going to make reality appear to be on the otherside. In the USA, the "liberals" are closer to reality as the wingnuts take over the "conservatives" dragging them further off the deep end.
Emotions trump logic; this pretty basic stuff. Notice how the successful ones get their followers to be upset at anybody contradicting the doctrine/dogma? They need to get emotional when when threatened so they are even less likely to question anything.
"A man believes what he wants to believe and disregards the rest" -Paul Simon, in the song The Boxer
Exactly! All it takes is some idiots to screw something up and rules like this are made to try to deter them. Idiots are quite ingenious so this will not stop them much but it will provide a legal means to get back at them in a vengeful way which likely will not be anymore effective than just yelling at them. (Unless they are fools and need something more blunt to make an impression.)
The problem is that these sort of laws are like designing software for idiots; you end up causing more trouble for the majority trying to make something fool proof that the fools will still cause troubles with; increasing the complexity just adds to the troubles (which in law helps employ lawyers who are arguably the biggest lobby.)
EXACTLY! Furthermore, welfare states like TEXAS couldn't survive without all the money they take from NY, CA etc and complain when those states get back any of their money while trash talking about leaving the country etc-- sounding like total fools.
We have a reality problem in the USA; I think its often a sign of a problem when somebody keeps overstating some characteristic of theirs - it often means they short on that attribute. "Keeping it real," "candid" etc crap being professed is just a bluff; most the nation is out of touch with reality - their huge personal debts to maintain the quality of life that used to exist should be a clear indicator but most are still living the dream... refusing to wake up. Politicians constantly professing a return to previous growth rates that are unsustainable..
Say you tax cars by weight and for a larger amount that does actually handles upkeep of the roads... then you have an uproar over car costs, gas costs etc. truckers charge more for shipping, trains get more affordable and compete more with trucks and people start to live in a way that reflects reality instead of dreamland. City planning reflects transit instead of building factories in stupid locations and shipping stuff needlessly and in costly ways... it doesn't today and we all end up paying more for such subsidized waste. The market can adapt; people will find profit somewhere, but when these bad feedback loops form, the market promotes them because they don't like unnecessary risk or costly transitions since they were competing in tainted marketplaces. Some may go out of business; but we can't allow that!! we must protect dead end jobs at all costs to ourselves... Roads is just 1 area. Energy is another one with even more problems.
Sometimes I wonder that if tobacco's problems started now would we ever be able to achieve the victories we had in the last 30 years.
I've seen plenty of good communicators go over the head of stupid people. Then you have IGNORANT people which increases with the level of depth in the subject you are getting into (and education of the audience.) Even more important is how interested or distracted the audience is! Half their mind even if they are smart and educated may not be enough. You have to scare people to get them to pay attention but then their mind doesn't function so well either...
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly:
The BIG PROBLEM with any science that messes with a PR firm is that the PR people are experts in misconception and the scientists are not. Truth and understanding are not goals for PR (aka propaganda.) Any debate is heavily stacked against science outside the academic arena. Every misconception, stereotype, intuition, logic error, emotion, and LIE can be employed - plus when the audience wants to believe the lies, they'll ignore the minor falsehoods and accept the others that get past; quite often the truth/reality is unpleasant; its no coincidence escapist industries do better during bad times.
Since they had COVERS on any beta phones outside the building (see old gizmodo coverage) and that one may cautiously put a case on the beta phones just in case they go somewhere THEN the testers were not touching the metal!
Also, CA has good coverage.
They didn't have an expert involved who would freak out over this issue is my theory. Assumptions such as "everybody buys a cover for their phone" - if there was a person with the job, they likely were using their non-expert opinion to trump their own expertise; or their boss was... in which case, there should have been more issues over the years.
The engineering design decisions make sense; it is a lot like software - new features make new problems. New problems in new areas of expertise can create new job openings; they didn't have huge problems in the past and they have messed with WiFi problems in the past...
The simple fix is to put a case on the phone; or to spray some plastic coating over the outside of the metal. (which may wear off, but most people will buy a case or get a new phone before the plastic wears off enough to be a problem.)
Ever hear of technology overkill? Make 2 maps keep one somewhere else. Have somebody make a copy of the map - or even make a HAND copied map! Whoa! mind blowing concept! wait... what if you don't know how to draw or write because you typed everything from birth?
What is the temp outside? oh, I'll just press F12 and see what it is at the local airport over the internet OR I could just look out the window to a cleverly placed thermometer...
Rube-goldberg machine: web browser powered widget communicating over a TCP stack over the internet routing to dozens of machines to some database server which is updated by another computer running at the airport with all the same complexity plus has electronics to convert temperature to serial and then to USB... and each layer involves protocols and APIs... sure it works pretty well, but that is a lot of points of failure to read the temp which could differ a bit from my location. Who cares if they have slightly different weather than my house?? Well, if that doesn't matter that much then why am I using such a precise complex network of technology to get ball-park information when I could just stick my head out the door??
No! as others can easily point out, the people shouldn't trust their officials.
If you think for a second, you'll realize that other countries have different LAWS on power generation as well as different levels of corruption. We have centuries of powerful nations exploiting weaker ones on multiple fronts. They could put cheap poorly regulated power outside the nation and use their power to keep the other nation incapable of opposing their exploitation.
I want PROOF of nuclear plants that are cost effective (not excluding tons of government welfare.) We hear about next gen nuclear power and fuel recycling etc but its all just talk nobody ever cites an example. I've never seen it done yet so hypothetically, if examples are given, would they be verified credible examples?
The established power corps which are largely centralized entities may be handled as corruptly/incompetently as the OIL rig industry... Can't trust them or the current regulators.
There are plenty of cut-and-dry situations where computers can replace or out perform humans and even when they are sub-par, billions of people around the world have limited to no access to doctors but increasingly are getting smart phones. Some people have no medical but they have a cell phone!
This is just the beginning; better hardware and years of development in this area will produce machines that can do even better. It should someday come down to cheap doctor free centers or drug store machines to do the bulk of the diagnosis work before referral to a specialist. A phone will always be limited because it will not have the hardware to probe - a digital x-ray booth with recognition software could make that whole area accessible to billions who couldn't have it before. There is no way a human doctor can know enough to diagnose it all (they luck out in that it follows a bell curve;) the subject is too vast -- somebody has to be on the front line and it may as well be a cell phone that helps you find the proper specialists.
Errors will happen but I see no reason why machines can't out perform the humans on average. I've seen plenty of doctor errors in my life...
I disagree. Sadly, the USA has undermined itself by propping up a failing system for so long that the house of cards could fall if not propped up. Its the fear that the fundamentally unsound system will collapse in a big way that fuels the desperate measures.
The bankster casino market we created is such a HUGE portion of the economy and GDP (arguably over 50%) that letting that crash would create huge holes in the economy likely powerful enough to collapse the whole farce.
I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't complete by casino for the "poker chips" in the future economy lacking the gold or oil standards to make it worth buying usa dollars.
I'm not saying they should go back to the past system; although, that is the traditional constitutional way...
Its possible since we did change it in the past, to change it again. A hybrid of 1/3 vote by the state and 2/3 by popular vote for example. Something to keep state governments in the federal loop because its too federal now and was too much a state level corruption problem before. At least with state corruption it differed by state; although, corporations are more powerful than federal government so neither makes a big difference at this time.
Sorry but times have to get much much worse before that is possible. The public is too clueless, ignorant, and distracted to have the motivation to do anything about it and if it was done somehow they'd not be interested enough to make sure the next thing wasn't hijacked by opportunists.
The USA founders had some opportunistic bastards among them, but they differed on their needs and there were enough idealists and intellectuals among them to pull of something that is quite good. Getting the right group together is tough and having a public who's conscious enough to follow along AND willing to be extremely active (like post war) is also difficult if not a mandatory precondition.
Jefferson's most foolish statement I've found so far was the one about frequent re-writing of the constitution.
The biggest mistake was the lack of attention given to the press. Making it "free" was not enough and putting about 3% of the GDP to government subsidizing the press (the biggest reason for the post office) was a great idea and shows how necessary they thought an informed democracy is... but the lack of formalized support resulted in a completely privatized and taxed press about 100 years later which has degraded into an embarrassing joke.
1984 isn't a blueprint, its an example, an implementation of a philosophy of control by negative feedback. Brave New World is the flip side (positive control) which inspired and preceded 1984. The press can be undone far easier as a form of distraction/entertainment competing for eyeballs than it can be rigidly controlled. This should be obvious, rather than banning options openly so its clear to everybody; you flood them with more appealing alternatives and avoid making the unwanted options stand out. Both control methods have their strengths and weaknesses and both should be studied.
The filibuster DDoS attack against the constitutional function of the senate brings you much of todays PORK spending. These senators have corps in their state that want our tax money. Deals must be made for EACH senator's pet project when they decide they are in the best position to abuse procedures. (filibuster is not written into the system and some voting thresholds are which clearly imply a majority rule is the expected norm.)
State government needs to get back some of their power to pick senators. We changed it due to corruption; but it has become corrupt either way while state representation has fallen down to the point where the federal government has become too powerful. Power corrupts and must be distributed even in some cases where it is not ideal. Just as the right to due process applies to everybody without exception (drawing lines only leads to abuse so this must be severely limited.)
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Just like the POLL TAX on voting; government has undermined the right to gather by requiring permits. Police may not show up and cause trouble but you could be in trouble for unlawful assembly and whatever else they can make up.
You are required by a protest TAX to ask permission to exercise your rights and they CAN turn down your permit or move you to a free speech zone and charge too much "processing fees" - being totally unreasonable under the laws. We'll need a big fight to undo it just like there was for the poll tax on voting and the other laws that anybody with a brain could honestly see were just legal games to hack away at our rights. This is what judges are supposed to be doing; cutting out the BS that is just playing legal games to defeat laws and our rights not being so literal minded computers will soon be able to replace them.
The one party system for recording applies to MOST states; there are just a few messed up corrupt states where everyone must be informed. Google around and find out if your state is a one party or all party recording state.
Real power exists in the minds of the subjugated! Power is given not taken.
Total defeat means breaking the will of the people to resist. Winning wars has always been about subjugation.
Their will can not be broken by any means ever employed in the history of warfare; you can kill 100% of them and turn the nation into crater but you will have NOT broken their will and therefore your mission/purpose will have been a complete failure. The ONLY way to "win" against an enemy that will not yield is to redefine success (such as genocide or a retreat covered by narrow goals.) This is why there was that stuff about "winning their hearts and minds" has been out there - not to raise the level of discourse but because the officials were forced to allude to concepts they usually ignore publicly; furthermore, its timing was a concession at the difficulty of the situation which the clever insurgents noticed.
Aside: Mind control has never been employed full scale and for the good of humanity a completely successful method will never be discovered so that answer is not a possible option.
We need LEGAL protection not the whim of the FCC.
I'm for equality but I'm NOT for some of the moves trying to implement it. We are just an election away from another crook heading the FCC or an organized group of nuts sending in letters and skewing the org over 4 letter words etc. Furthermore, if the FCC can regulate internet over private communication lines this includes HBO etc unless explicitly exempted. What happens when TV goes to IP? I object to their powers on TV airwaves.
Free speech is the opposite of being free from offense!
What the FCC should be doing is creating a digital ratings system that works instead of this marketing based industry tripe we have today. Help people protect their kids and shield their fragile minds from offensive material but NOT IMPOSE limitations (other than fraudulent ratings and not making ratings mandatory.) Children's programming would have ratings or otherwise not be seen by parents blocking unrated material. This could extend to the web as well; sure it limits the web for children - that is a parents choice to make. Adult programming could allow viewers to blank out graphic scenes or skip to only the sex or violence scenes... Yes, I'm saying we should also have an optional ratings track with timecode; I couldn't care less about artistic integrity! They can't stop me from skipping chapters or skipping their whole "artwork."
I don't like the Internet Super Highway thing but it fits quite well. The highway system works pretty well and government did that and still does MOST of it. Sometimes they mess up largely due to their own citizens neglect of their duties... but overall they do quite well.
Nothing says that we can't have government run internet everywhere like we do with the roads. HELL, they run all those wires down the public land of the roadways! There are many ways payment can be done for it. Also, private business can use it freely without discrimination. My local city could provide poor DNS service or I could pay for some or use OpenDNS. The city could also do a simple DHCP server. ISPs are largely USELESS outside of the connection; even more so with IPv6. We've seen the silly games of multiple ISPs over the same wire from DSL and a little with cable but I see no reason we can not do that over a public connection. Me, I'd set myself up as an ISP because they do nothing for me I can not do myself. It's like paying a toll to drive down the street.... oh wait, some idiotic places have done that!
The standard event model allows javascript to trigger events such as keystrokes.
Its easy to see why a browser obsessed with speed would just forward the API call to the internal event model. I can totally see the appeal and instinctive reaction to a situation like this; its clean, fast and simple coding - security is not often a big goal when you are initially just trying to get something working; even so, this could get missed by multiple eyes... Plus this is not part of webkit - its bridging the engine to the GUI; which is an unusual situation compared to the bulk of code - all the hard work is in the engine this just ties that to a GUI, quite likely there is a separation between working groups - obviously there is one since the engine is open source and the GUI is not. Their job is to bridge and probably do not get the level of attention as other aspects of the program.
I'm not letting them off the hook, this should have be caught within 1 version or during a security audit if there was one... and if there was:
1) was the attention given to the engine only?
2) do these people work on the code so they get tied up fixing bugs instead of just logging all the ones they uncover? (a lack of specialization)
Exactly!
This has to be one of the BIGGEST misunderstandings over averages (means) I've ever seen. It has wide reaching impact as well. It gives people a false notion that modern times have extended our lives greatly or that poor nations have people who do not live long, etc. The perception has wide reaching impact. Those starving diseased places in the world don't actually have a whole lot less of a lifespan than we think they do - they just have huge child mortality rates knocking it down for the most part - the war torn places have an impact too but it is not as great as the hugely skewing child death rates. Just fixing up the birth process brings up the stat in large ways; although, again you are then focusing effort based upon a misunderstanding of averages instead of working on more important factors which simply lack the pull on the numbers.
It also undermines the belief that modern medicine is as great as we think it is... not completely, but it doesn't look as great as the numbers make it look... so we get a few more years out of it...at huge massive expense... alters one's perspective a little bit.
I think the main reason for the change was marketing - people respond to shiny things more than matte things. its evolutionary and we've not lost it from the fish -- who we attract to our hooks. Its used on products and packaging.
One could say many women use shiny things to catch men; some ear rings even look like fishing lures and the body piercings... well those make it look like they got hooked themselves and escaped... (notice how they area almost always shiny)
Smith has been good but to me has gone down a little from the start; I'd like more baker.
This is minor stuff-- what bothers me is the final season shows and Christmas specials which try to always top or cook up a crazy death of everything and all times and all parallel universes etc.... They stretch that too far and more each time they do it - like a Hollywood sequel... Christmas specials should never actually have anything to do with the holiday (they seemed to have noticed this problem.)
Its getting too melodramatic and mushy on these story ark endings as well; this last one really pushed it trying to find a way out of an impossible mess at the end with an extremely unlikely trap. Place him into an unmonitored prison cell with his toys-- anyone think of james bond...(or Austin Powers?) Don't get me started on the carebear resolution to it. The magical way they brought back The Master for the end of season 4 was just stupid. (how about a non linear encounter with The Master before he died??)
Its as if the dramatic situations are the point and the sci-fi is only an after thought and this is becoming too neglected (at least star trek always made an effort on that even if the story sucked) The old doctor series drew from short story sci-fi and even had guest writers- they have had some great new material, don't get me wrong - plenty of rehash room - but some episodes were just messed up-- WW2 planes in space... the UK on an endangered space whale? WTF? (ok, the 1st part of that one was good, but it needed the other half rewritten.)
PLUS it would be nice if the UK was not the center of the universe! (SOME bias is ok) - the old doctors I watched traveled to more places and I was just fine with all the humanoids and recycled UK sets. There is fan fiction ideas already; plenty of repeating themes to borrow ideas from --- star trek for example! (just spoof trek; everybody would enjoy that better.) At least with a form of history reset they can ignore a lot of previous shows.
The most out of touch with reality is going to make reality appear to be on the otherside. In the USA, the "liberals" are closer to reality as the wingnuts take over the "conservatives" dragging them further off the deep end.
Emotions trump logic; this pretty basic stuff. Notice how the successful ones get their followers to be upset at anybody contradicting the doctrine/dogma? They need to get emotional when when threatened so they are even less likely to question anything.
"A man believes what he wants to believe and disregards the rest"
-Paul Simon, in the song The Boxer
Exactly! All it takes is some idiots to screw something up and rules like this are made to try to deter them. Idiots are quite ingenious so this will not stop them much but it will provide a legal means to get back at them in a vengeful way which likely will not be anymore effective than just yelling at them. (Unless they are fools and need something more blunt to make an impression.)
The problem is that these sort of laws are like designing software for idiots; you end up causing more trouble for the majority trying to make something fool proof that the fools will still cause troubles with; increasing the complexity just adds to the troubles (which in law helps employ lawyers who are arguably the biggest lobby.)
Literal interpretation with pointless technical quibbling?
I must have forgot this is slashdot.
EXACTLY! Furthermore, welfare states like TEXAS couldn't survive without all the money they take from NY, CA etc and complain when those states get back any of their money while trash talking about leaving the country etc-- sounding like total fools.
We have a reality problem in the USA; I think its often a sign of a problem when somebody keeps overstating some characteristic of theirs - it often means they short on that attribute. "Keeping it real," "candid" etc crap being professed is just a bluff; most the nation is out of touch with reality - their huge personal debts to maintain the quality of life that used to exist should be a clear indicator but most are still living the dream... refusing to wake up. Politicians constantly professing a return to previous growth rates that are unsustainable..
Say you tax cars by weight and for a larger amount that does actually handles upkeep of the roads... then you have an uproar over car costs, gas costs etc. truckers charge more for shipping, trains get more affordable and compete more with trucks and people start to live in a way that reflects reality instead of dreamland. City planning reflects transit instead of building factories in stupid locations and shipping stuff needlessly and in costly ways... it doesn't today and we all end up paying more for such subsidized waste. The market can adapt; people will find profit somewhere, but when these bad feedback loops form, the market promotes them because they don't like unnecessary risk or costly transitions since they were competing in tainted marketplaces. Some may go out of business; but we can't allow that!! we must protect dead end jobs at all costs to ourselves... Roads is just 1 area. Energy is another one with even more problems.
Sometimes I wonder that if tobacco's problems started now would we ever be able to achieve the victories we had in the last 30 years.
HALF THE POPULACE IS BELOW AVERAGE!
I've seen plenty of good communicators go over the head of stupid people. Then you have IGNORANT people which increases with the level of depth in the subject you are getting into (and education of the audience.) Even more important is how interested or distracted the audience is! Half their mind even if they are smart and educated may not be enough. You have to scare people to get them to pay attention but then their mind doesn't function so well either...
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly:
The BIG PROBLEM with any science that messes with a PR firm is that the PR people are experts in misconception and the scientists are not. Truth and understanding are not goals for PR (aka propaganda.) Any debate is heavily stacked against science outside the academic arena. Every misconception, stereotype, intuition, logic error, emotion, and LIE can be employed - plus when the audience wants to believe the lies, they'll ignore the minor falsehoods and accept the others that get past; quite often the truth/reality is unpleasant; its no coincidence escapist industries do better during bad times.
My guess is that:
Since they had COVERS on any beta phones outside the building (see old gizmodo coverage) and that one may cautiously put a case on the beta phones just in case they go somewhere THEN the testers were not touching the metal!
Also, CA has good coverage.
They didn't have an expert involved who would freak out over this issue is my theory.
Assumptions such as "everybody buys a cover for their phone" - if there was a person with the job, they likely were using their non-expert opinion to trump their own expertise; or their boss was... in which case, there should have been more issues over the years.
The engineering design decisions make sense; it is a lot like software - new features make new problems. New problems in new areas of expertise can create new job openings; they didn't have huge problems in the past and they have messed with WiFi problems in the past...
The simple fix is to put a case on the phone; or to spray some plastic coating over the outside of the metal. (which may wear off, but most people will buy a case or get a new phone before the plastic wears off enough to be a problem.)
Ever hear of technology overkill?
Make 2 maps keep one somewhere else. Have somebody make a copy of the map - or even make a HAND copied map! Whoa! mind blowing concept! wait... what if you don't know how to draw or write because you typed everything from birth?
What is the temp outside? oh, I'll just press F12 and see what it is at the local airport over the internet OR I could just look out the window to a cleverly placed thermometer...
Rube-goldberg machine: web browser powered widget communicating over a TCP stack over the internet routing to dozens of machines to some database server which is updated by another computer running at the airport with all the same complexity plus has electronics to convert temperature to serial and then to USB... and each layer involves protocols and APIs... sure it works pretty well, but that is a lot of points of failure to read the temp which could differ a bit from my location. Who cares if they have slightly different weather than my house?? Well, if that doesn't matter that much then why am I using such a precise complex network of technology to get ball-park information when I could just stick my head out the door??
HTML 5 comes in 2 formats:
XML and that messy html 4
The MIME type from the webserver indicates which one it is in the http protocol.
No! as others can easily point out, the people shouldn't trust their officials.
If you think for a second, you'll realize that other countries have different LAWS on power generation as well as different levels of corruption. We have centuries of powerful nations exploiting weaker ones on multiple fronts. They could put cheap poorly regulated power outside the nation and use their power to keep the other nation incapable of opposing their exploitation.
I want PROOF of nuclear plants that are cost effective (not excluding tons of government welfare.) We hear about next gen nuclear power and fuel recycling etc but its all just talk nobody ever cites an example. I've never seen it done yet so hypothetically, if examples are given, would they be verified credible examples?
The established power corps which are largely centralized entities may be handled as corruptly/incompetently as the OIL rig industry... Can't trust them or the current regulators.
There are plenty of cut-and-dry situations where computers can replace or out perform humans and even when they are sub-par, billions of people around the world have limited to no access to doctors but increasingly are getting smart phones. Some people have no medical but they have a cell phone!
This is just the beginning; better hardware and years of development in this area will produce machines that can do even better. It should someday come down to cheap doctor free centers or drug store machines to do the bulk of the diagnosis work before referral to a specialist. A phone will always be limited because it will not have the hardware to probe - a digital x-ray booth with recognition software could make that whole area accessible to billions who couldn't have it before. There is no way a human doctor can know enough to diagnose it all (they luck out in that it follows a bell curve;) the subject is too vast -- somebody has to be on the front line and it may as well be a cell phone that helps you find the proper specialists.
Errors will happen but I see no reason why machines can't out perform the humans on average. I've seen plenty of doctor errors in my life...
if I just had some mod points
I disagree. Sadly, the USA has undermined itself by propping up a failing system for so long that the house of cards could fall if not propped up. Its the fear that the fundamentally unsound system will collapse in a big way that fuels the desperate measures.
The bankster casino market we created is such a HUGE portion of the economy and GDP (arguably over 50%) that letting that crash would create huge holes in the economy likely powerful enough to collapse the whole farce.
I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't complete by casino for the "poker chips" in the future economy lacking the gold or oil standards to make it worth buying usa dollars.
American empire will fall within 10 years.
I'm not saying they should go back to the past system; although, that is the traditional constitutional way...
Its possible since we did change it in the past, to change it again. A hybrid of 1/3 vote by the state and 2/3 by popular vote for example. Something to keep state governments in the federal loop because its too federal now and was too much a state level corruption problem before. At least with state corruption it differed by state; although, corporations are more powerful than federal government so neither makes a big difference at this time.
Sorry but times have to get much much worse before that is possible. The public is too clueless, ignorant, and distracted to have the motivation to do anything about it and if it was done somehow they'd not be interested enough to make sure the next thing wasn't hijacked by opportunists.
The USA founders had some opportunistic bastards among them, but they differed on their needs and there were enough idealists and intellectuals among them to pull of something that is quite good. Getting the right group together is tough and having a public who's conscious enough to follow along AND willing to be extremely active (like post war) is also difficult if not a mandatory precondition.
Jefferson's most foolish statement I've found so far was the one about frequent re-writing of the constitution.
The biggest mistake was the lack of attention given to the press. Making it "free" was not enough and putting about 3% of the GDP to government subsidizing the press (the biggest reason for the post office) was a great idea and shows how necessary they thought an informed democracy is... but the lack of formalized support resulted in a completely privatized and taxed press about 100 years later which has degraded into an embarrassing joke.
1984 isn't a blueprint, its an example, an implementation of a philosophy of control by negative feedback. Brave New World is the flip side (positive control) which inspired and preceded 1984. The press can be undone far easier as a form of distraction/entertainment competing for eyeballs than it can be rigidly controlled. This should be obvious, rather than banning options openly so its clear to everybody; you flood them with more appealing alternatives and avoid making the unwanted options stand out. Both control methods have their strengths and weaknesses and both should be studied.
The filibuster DDoS attack against the constitutional function of the senate brings you much of todays PORK spending. These senators have corps in their state that want our tax money. Deals must be made for EACH senator's pet project when they decide they are in the best position to abuse procedures. (filibuster is not written into the system and some voting thresholds are which clearly imply a majority rule is the expected norm.)
State government needs to get back some of their power to pick senators. We changed it due to corruption; but it has become corrupt either way while state representation has fallen down to the point where the federal government has become too powerful. Power corrupts and must be distributed even in some cases where it is not ideal. Just as the right to due process applies to everybody without exception (drawing lines only leads to abuse so this must be severely limited.)