Actually, you sort of end up with the situation we're seeing with Amazon, who appear to have based their new tablet on a older version of Android, and built entirely without the Google couplings.
Which sort of illustrates my point - Amazon did not have to become a huge software house like Apple in order to put out a new, tightly integrated product.
But you are correct - Google tightening up on Android can certainly reduce the advantages of it being open and ultimately make Android on phones and tablets more like Windows on the PC.
The fact -- and to what degree -- Android is "open" doesn't matter.
I completely disagree. The fact that it is open means it can be more completely customized. That means someone like HTC can theoretically provide a user experience similar to that of Apple without spending the R&D money to build their own OS.
What good is an "open" platform to a vendor if it can't be customized? It just becomes even more of a commodity.
That is an exceptionally good point.
I would also point out that the whole Android ecosystem could be undone by a loss of patent lawsuits by Google or the Android vendors. If the amount they have to pay for license fees starts to approach the cost of a home-grown system, the advantage vanishes. This is why I say we are at the "Compaq" stage of things still in the phone market vs. the PC market. If Android is made more expensive and less customizable, then it indeed becomes more like Windows.
Slashdot always had stupid, juvenile humor mixed in with the more sophisticated gems, obscure sci-fi references, jokes in psuedo-code, and occasional guy who actually has some experience with the subject at hand. Perhaps you are just getting older?
It is similar in that respect, but remember how PCs got to that point - a much different road!
There was no intention to make the PC an "open" platform. The PC was the IBM PC, and they were just as closed as Apple. They had a better name within business, but Atari and Commodore got started when ALL computers were closed. When Compaq created the first PC clone and then won the resulting lawsuit, it opened the floodgates to PC clones and forcibly "opened" the platform.
Android, on the other hand, started open from the get-go. We are now in the "lawsuit" phase compared to the PC platform, not the Windows vs Mac phase yet. Android is Compaq, not Microsoft (even snatching up a hardware vendor!). If Google is successful in defending Android, then it is going to be hard for anyone to compete with companies who peddle an OS that they don't spend R&D on - at least on the low end. There will always be room at the high-end for a more seamless package, as Apple has shown in the PC market. Then again, with an open system, hardware vendors have nothing to stop them from modifications that make the whole thing hassle free for the customer - unlike the Windows license that restricts hardware manufacturers from doing things that make their customer's lives easier.
What was my point again? LOL, oh yeah - I don't think the cell phone market is very analagous to the PC market. Concisely: There was no "open" platform in the PC wars. Also, Apple's iOS is the IBM of the PC wars, not - well - Apple. Android is a beast where no analog existed until perhaps Linux, but way too late in the game to make a difference.
So as your income increases you are happy to live in riskier areas?
Maybe "afford" isn't the right word. I use the cost of insurance as a gauge as to the riskiness of the area. Even within my neighborhood, there is wide variation in the cost of flood insurance depending on your elevation and which side of the creek you live on.
I'm pretty sure some people would rather not be dead even though their property was adequately insured.
I'm pretty sure those people no longer care one way or another:)
we allow engineers to be sued for failed engineering designs. this is a failed earthquake warning from a person supposed to be responsible for providing earthquake warnings. why is it so different ?
Because most of the time, engineering disasters result very clearly from a human error. Most of the things that engineers do are based on very sound science. Yes, there have been incidents like plane crashes that resulted from misunderstanding crack propagation and fatigue - but most of the time there is a design flaw that violated current standards.
Predicting the size and scope of a future earthquake is based on much less firm science. So long as these guys were within the generally accepted error bars of their field, they shouldn't be prosecuted.
To put it another way, if the brand-new New York Times building were to collapse tomorrow in a mild wind that gusted withing generally agreed design parameters, there would be similar calls for the heads of the engineers/architects/builders. If a freak 200 MPH wind storm hit the building and knocked it down, people wouldn't generally blame the engineers - but would certainly demand that the design parameters be changed!
I won't live somewhere if I can't afford earthquake and flood insurance at that location. The insurance actuaries are better at calculating risk than I am:)
They make money because they control its creation and distribution, not because they add value.
A normal bank can't make new money - only the federal reserve banks can. All they can do is loan out their deposits and get money on the interest. That most certainly does add value.
Where I agree with you is when the government lets regular banks undertake investment bank activity like selling other financial instruments. The risk is not worth the reward.
The world could live without big finance, it couldn't live without construction.
But construction could not happen without finance.
Why shouldn't people talk about class warfare, when one class has been fucking the rest for decades?
Because the members of that class have changed. Sure, there are still Rockerfellers and Carnegies out there - but now you have Buffett and Gates. As long as there is some basic level of social mobility, class warfare is counter-productive. I think that social mobility needs to be improved, but it's not bad enough to invite revolution.
There are countries with narrower wealth distribution than the US, that have less debt, less poverty, less ill-health, less crime and less of a myriad of other terrible things, thanks in part to bankers not making multiples of the incomes of construction workers.
Correlation != causation. It's also astounding that you think these places don't have very rich people in banking.
Don't get me wrong - I think poverty is a real problem, and it does lead to ill health and crime. But goodness, don't you think that maybe our history of racism might have a lot more to do with poverty than our banking system? Scandinavia has very little recent historical problem with racism - they have a mostly homogeneous population. As long as you drive through an urban US ghetto and almost all of the people are basically the same color - I don't know how you get a stronger correlation than that.
The people at this high income level exist in a closed society.
Everyone self-segregates into comfortable circles.
You can't get in if you are not born into it, or the victim of some extremely rare event.
It's not exactly rare to jump classes in the Western World. It's not the norm, but it's not rare at all - it's expressed in single-digit percentage points IIRC.
There are a series of filters in place to prevent their anti-social behavior from exposure to the outside world.
Again, everyone filters their actions and behavior to some degree based on audience.
I suspect you either overestimate the number of people willing to perform sanitation labor (there is a stigma attached to that necessary job), or underestimate the amount of trash humanity produces.
Actually my assumption was that it was my own community, which has only a handful of trashmen. You are correct that it would take more than a week to find and train a new staff for a city. Still, this would be measured in weeks and not years as with neurologists.
I am sure that society can do without the brain-damaged far easier than it can do without functioning garbage collection.
The value of sanitation far exceeds the value of neurology to mankind - no question. But there are far fewer people involved in neurology and much less money spent on it. Something like half a billion tons of municipal waste is handled in the US every year, and the number of brain surgeries is measured in the thousands. So society already has it's priorities square on this particular issue.
I'm not sure how you'd get any brain surgeons to take up the trade if they could skip school altogether and just dump trash all day, or more likely do something even more cush.
It does not take great intelligence to be a trader and misogyny is widespread within the industry.
Someone making 100 times what a construction worker does ($20 million?) is not just "a trader", and might be a clan sympathizer for all I know - but they are going to know who and when they can say things to... thus my politically savvy comment.
The bad news is Mr. Banker pays for his services with money extorted from the taxpayer (in many cases).
You must be using a pretty loose word for "extortion". To what activity are you referring?
Arguing about who initially pays and is therefore a 'wealth producer' is really a circular debate.
And yet you participate!:) I'm not arguing who is a wealth producer or not - just stating the fact that these evil rich people pay for almost everything federal that we good main streeters rely upon every day. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for progressive taxation - but when politicians stand up and say "the rich aren't paying their fair share" it kind of irks me. We can have an honest debate about how progressive the tax structure should be without demonizing.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, you sort of end up with the situation we're seeing with Amazon, who appear to have based their new tablet on a older version of Android, and built entirely without the Google couplings.
Which sort of illustrates my point - Amazon did not have to become a huge software house like Apple in order to put out a new, tightly integrated product.
But you are correct - Google tightening up on Android can certainly reduce the advantages of it being open and ultimately make Android on phones and tablets more like Windows on the PC.
Yes, and Apple II was open as well in that sense. But in either case, making a clone got you sued.
The fact -- and to what degree -- Android is "open" doesn't matter.
I completely disagree. The fact that it is open means it can be more completely customized. That means someone like HTC can theoretically provide a user experience similar to that of Apple without spending the R&D money to build their own OS.
What good is an "open" platform to a vendor if it can't be customized? It just becomes even more of a commodity.
That is an exceptionally good point.
I would also point out that the whole Android ecosystem could be undone by a loss of patent lawsuits by Google or the Android vendors. If the amount they have to pay for license fees starts to approach the cost of a home-grown system, the advantage vanishes. This is why I say we are at the "Compaq" stage of things still in the phone market vs. the PC market. If Android is made more expensive and less customizable, then it indeed becomes more like Windows.
Slashdot always had stupid, juvenile humor mixed in with the more sophisticated gems, obscure sci-fi references, jokes in psuedo-code, and occasional guy who actually has some experience with the subject at hand. Perhaps you are just getting older?
You have Android like windows,
It is similar in that respect, but remember how PCs got to that point - a much different road!
There was no intention to make the PC an "open" platform. The PC was the IBM PC, and they were just as closed as Apple. They had a better name within business, but Atari and Commodore got started when ALL computers were closed. When Compaq created the first PC clone and then won the resulting lawsuit, it opened the floodgates to PC clones and forcibly "opened" the platform.
Android, on the other hand, started open from the get-go. We are now in the "lawsuit" phase compared to the PC platform, not the Windows vs Mac phase yet. Android is Compaq, not Microsoft (even snatching up a hardware vendor!). If Google is successful in defending Android, then it is going to be hard for anyone to compete with companies who peddle an OS that they don't spend R&D on - at least on the low end. There will always be room at the high-end for a more seamless package, as Apple has shown in the PC market. Then again, with an open system, hardware vendors have nothing to stop them from modifications that make the whole thing hassle free for the customer - unlike the Windows license that restricts hardware manufacturers from doing things that make their customer's lives easier.
What was my point again? LOL, oh yeah - I don't think the cell phone market is very analagous to the PC market. Concisely: There was no "open" platform in the PC wars. Also, Apple's iOS is the IBM of the PC wars, not - well - Apple. Android is a beast where no analog existed until perhaps Linux, but way too late in the game to make a difference.
Of course, I live in Be'er Sheva and we've had tens of missiles fall on us from Gaza recently! No insurance for that!
Yeah, it's not a perfect system :)
I wonder if their is a Google Maps mashup showing homemade rocket launcher locations? ;p
So as your income increases you are happy to live in riskier areas?
Maybe "afford" isn't the right word. I use the cost of insurance as a gauge as to the riskiness of the area. Even within my neighborhood, there is wide variation in the cost of flood insurance depending on your elevation and which side of the creek you live on.
I'm pretty sure some people would rather not be dead even though their property was adequately insured.
I'm pretty sure those people no longer care one way or another :)
we allow engineers to be sued for failed engineering designs. this is a failed earthquake warning from a person supposed to be responsible for providing earthquake warnings. why is it so different ?
Because most of the time, engineering disasters result very clearly from a human error. Most of the things that engineers do are based on very sound science. Yes, there have been incidents like plane crashes that resulted from misunderstanding crack propagation and fatigue - but most of the time there is a design flaw that violated current standards.
Predicting the size and scope of a future earthquake is based on much less firm science. So long as these guys were within the generally accepted error bars of their field, they shouldn't be prosecuted.
To put it another way, if the brand-new New York Times building were to collapse tomorrow in a mild wind that gusted withing generally agreed design parameters, there would be similar calls for the heads of the engineers/architects/builders. If a freak 200 MPH wind storm hit the building and knocked it down, people wouldn't generally blame the engineers - but would certainly demand that the design parameters be changed!
I won't live somewhere if I can't afford earthquake and flood insurance at that location. The insurance actuaries are better at calculating risk than I am :)
Well, can we at least agree to relax until they do something like that? :)
They make money because they control its creation and distribution, not because they add value.
A normal bank can't make new money - only the federal reserve banks can. All they can do is loan out their deposits and get money on the interest. That most certainly does add value.
Where I agree with you is when the government lets regular banks undertake investment bank activity like selling other financial instruments. The risk is not worth the reward.
The world could live without big finance, it couldn't live without construction.
But construction could not happen without finance.
Why shouldn't people talk about class warfare, when one class has been fucking the rest for decades?
Because the members of that class have changed. Sure, there are still Rockerfellers and Carnegies out there - but now you have Buffett and Gates. As long as there is some basic level of social mobility, class warfare is counter-productive. I think that social mobility needs to be improved, but it's not bad enough to invite revolution.
There are countries with narrower wealth distribution than the US, that have less debt, less poverty, less ill-health, less crime and less of a myriad of other terrible things, thanks in part to bankers not making multiples of the incomes of construction workers.
Correlation != causation. It's also astounding that you think these places don't have very rich people in banking.
Don't get me wrong - I think poverty is a real problem, and it does lead to ill health and crime. But goodness, don't you think that maybe our history of racism might have a lot more to do with poverty than our banking system? Scandinavia has very little recent historical problem with racism - they have a mostly homogeneous population. As long as you drive through an urban US ghetto and almost all of the people are basically the same color - I don't know how you get a stronger correlation than that.
So, once again we're going to end up having to replace a metric shit ton of applications because of an OS change.
Not every piece of software needs to be produced by Microsoft. Why can't a 3rd party emulator fill in the need?
I know - it even works on the iOS devices. I should have used a different example, like Yahoo Games or something.
My main point wasn't which site, but the fact that every other browser still supports plugins - including their own in another mode.
Ahhh, I think I'll just slink quietly away before I embarrass myself any further...
Huh, you are right. Apparently it aired in the 90s as well on Bravo.
Oh, and by the way, you're welcome. :)
The people at this high income level exist in a closed society.
Everyone self-segregates into comfortable circles.
You can't get in if you are not born into it, or the victim of some extremely rare event.
It's not exactly rare to jump classes in the Western World. It's not the norm, but it's not rare at all - it's expressed in single-digit percentage points IIRC.
There are a series of filters in place to prevent their anti-social behavior from exposure to the outside world.
Again, everyone filters their actions and behavior to some degree based on audience.
You get the idea, though. Every other browser still supports Flash, including their own in compatibility mode. It won't change anything.
They just made HTML5 video reality.
Not really.
My mom: "YouTube doesn't work on my new laptop."
Me: "Install Firefox or Chrome or Opera or Safari or Netscape Navigator 4.1"
Why wouldn't they be interested in keeping their managers happy?
So you are saying that - to the bank owners - those managers are worth the money they are being paid?
I suspect you either overestimate the number of people willing to perform sanitation labor (there is a stigma attached to that necessary job), or underestimate the amount of trash humanity produces.
Actually my assumption was that it was my own community, which has only a handful of trashmen. You are correct that it would take more than a week to find and train a new staff for a city. Still, this would be measured in weeks and not years as with neurologists.
I am sure that society can do without the brain-damaged far easier than it can do without functioning garbage collection.
The value of sanitation far exceeds the value of neurology to mankind - no question. But there are far fewer people involved in neurology and much less money spent on it. Something like half a billion tons of municipal waste is handled in the US every year, and the number of brain surgeries is measured in the thousands. So society already has it's priorities square on this particular issue.
I'm not sure how you'd get any brain surgeons to take up the trade if they could skip school altogether and just dump trash all day, or more likely do something even more cush.
True, true. My platitudes have an almost 1.5e-8 % failure rate :)
It does not take great intelligence to be a trader and misogyny is widespread within the industry.
Someone making 100 times what a construction worker does ($20 million?) is not just "a trader", and might be a clan sympathizer for all I know - but they are going to know who and when they can say things to... thus my politically savvy comment.
The bad news is Mr. Banker pays for his services with money extorted from the taxpayer (in many cases).
You must be using a pretty loose word for "extortion". To what activity are you referring?
Arguing about who initially pays and is therefore a 'wealth producer' is really a circular debate.
And yet you participate! :) I'm not arguing who is a wealth producer or not - just stating the fact that these evil rich people pay for almost everything federal that we good main streeters rely upon every day. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for progressive taxation - but when politicians stand up and say "the rich aren't paying their fair share" it kind of irks me. We can have an honest debate about how progressive the tax structure should be without demonizing.
and use that influence to make sure they get their "share."
So let me get this straight - the owners of the bank have so much influence that they overpay their managers?
What did I miss?
The easy ones are generally not worth very much. I don't know many people who claim that the Haaaavaaaaad or Colombia MBA programs are "so easy".
In less than that week, I could have new people collecting trash with no prior training.
Can you say the same about the striking neurologists?