The letter of the law allows for google's behavior, even if the spirit of the law requires people to pay their fair share.
As specified in the letter of the law. The letter of the law is the only valid way to specify "fair share".
Oh, you think there's some universal consensus-driven way to identify "fair share" without codifying it? Really? Do you really think an emotional, subjective mob can come up with "fair"? And if they can, maybe it should be put into law so it doesn't change with every fickle twitch of the spastic body politic.
You have heard of "rule of law", right? That's a good thing. The pronouncements of kings, mandarins, or other random retards doesn't decide fair or unfair, just or unjust. The law does. Juries don't decide charges or sentences, only verdicts. The law decides the other things.
Seriously. If the law isn't working, change the law. Ignoring the law in favor of a five-year-old's version of "fair" is demonstratably worse that what Google is doing.
The original TRS-80 was a wideband RF jammer. Cheap PCB design, plastic (unshielded) case, lots of ribbon cable external interconnects operating at megahertz frequencies.
One of the better ways to see whether the machine was frozen or just processing a long-running (but productive) internal loop was turn on an AM radio in the same room. Within about 3 feet, the RF noise would override all but the strongest stations and allow you to monitor the CPU's execution by the hums and burbles of the RF noise.
I can only speak for my specific case (Android, using Barcode Scanner app): the app displays the captured image, metadata about the capture, and a decode of the string (recognizing, for instance, that it's a URI QR). BUT does not just hie off to whatever website is indicated. The displayed URI string is clickable, and clicking it does open the URI in the default browser app, but it does take that much human intervention to navigate there.
A few notable specifics to compare with other situations:
(A) No OS-native QR code capability. It required an app from the Google App Store (free, but not Free). One of several, it appears.
(B) There is a configurable option "Retrieve more info" which, when enabled, looks up information about URI/URL QR codes as part of the decode. For instance, after ingesting the sample QR code from the Wikipedia "QR Code" article, the app correctly decodes the URI as "http://en.m.wikipedia.org", but with the "Retrieve more info" option enabled, it adds the descriptor "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"... which is the <Title> property at the top of that page, so I guess the app is retrieving the target URL internally and decoding the <Title> at least. Maybe that would be a buffer overflow vector for a well-crafted exploit, so I turn that option off.
I do believe that when the sun finally consumes this planet the last HP LaserJet 4 will finally die.
I'm actually skeptical of that, actually. In a billion years, hundreds of thousands of early-generation HP Laserjets will remain in orbit around the brown dwarf remnants of Sol, all blinking "PC LOAD LETTER" (because solar expansion burned away all the paper in the paper drawer).
"This" being "I use modern technology as a peripheral for really old technology."
Case in point: I use my early 2000s white box PC (Athlon XP 1800+) running CentOS Linux as a household server... and as an RS-232 serial terminal for a 1983 NorthStar Horizon (Z80 CPU, 64K memory, dual 5.25" floppies, running CP/M 2.2). And sometimes I use my 2012 Motorola Droid 4 smartphone as a wireless SSH terminal to get to the server, to run miniterm to access CP/M on this ancient piece of retro coolness. Because I'm stupid like that.
Yeah, but there're still some pretty crippling limitations. Without NoScript, you wind up with your recent browser history (your "back button" history) polluted with dozens of copies of the same pages you're looking at already, except for slightly different embeded ad content URLs... you have to spam the back button until you hopefully climb out of the hole o' advertising fail and back to the actual predecessor page you meant. Assuming you don't overshoot.
You don't see the ads, but they still screw up your browsing experience.
Hold it. When did we suddenly transition to talking about the iOS app store?
The decision paralysis problem caused by having too many choices is pretty common. It's pretty much your prototypical "first world problem". And any product marketing itself as a consumer product is prone to it. "All things to all people" effectively winds up "too many things for any given person".
RMS is more about freedoms most consumers will never notice they don't have. "The freedom to examine and modify"? Sheesh. Most consumers don't even want to know how to open the hood on their car. Read, edit, compile, and deploy software?
Free Software is an awesome notion, but for the overwhelming majority it's as irrelevant as the freedom to rebuild you car's engine. If Ford welded hoods shut and promised convenient lifetime service at authorized service centers "for free" (i.e., already in the price of the vehicle), a huge number of consumers would jump on it.
Expect the proliferation of "No user-serviceable parts inside" stickers on software and firmware.
Motorola, OTOH, has locked bootloaders on all its line unless you bought a developer phone. So the easy romming of HTC is a fantasy for Moto owners. The nearest you can get is a 2nd stage preloader that overlays the alternate ROM during the boot process, but I still don't really trust it.
The ground operator of a drone, even an autonomous one, is the pilot of record. And I never tease a military pilot about how short they are. They're very sensitive to that, considering I was a hulking enlisted.
And, yes, ScanEagle does use a ground control system for real-time mission management. ScanEagles do fly autonomously, and can do so to a completely pre-planned mission plan, but I think the preferred mode of operation is by real-time control, so that the UAV can be commanded to take a closer look at "interesting stuff". I don't think the real-time control is stick-and-throttle stuff like other UAVs use... more like mission command plus navigation. But that's just speculation on my part.
Not to mention, since some random Slashdot reader thought of it, don't you think our venerable lawmakers would as well (man, that one almost hurt to say)?
And do what about it, pray tell? Pass another law making it illegal to change corporate headquarters to a tax haven? If they could have effectively done that, it would have been done decades ago.
No, undoubtedly, our august legislators have thought about that very thing, which is precisely why the had the good sense not to publicly embarrass themselves by suggesting something as hair-brained and utterly unworkable.
Hold it. You don't monitor full disclosure security websites yourself?
It's called "Intel". It's worth the effort.
Full disclosure is only a problem if you don't take advantage of it yourself. Otherwise, it's embarrasing when your customers do your job for you, or when the blackhats do a little personal disclosure on your assets.
Yeah, yeah, I know. There aren't enough hours in the day, you don't have enough staff, etc., etc. That just means management isn't prioritizing and allocating correctly. That still means "you" are doing it wrong, in the collective organizational sense of "you".
You're proactive, or you're a victim. This is reality. You're just lucky your customers feel invested in helping you, even if out of self-defense.
Municipalities, counties, and any number of subordinate jurisdictions will howl--very effectively--if they're left off the gravy train. And that increases the complexity of the tax calculation problem by orders of magnitude. And you know for damn sure no state will buy into a system that makes work for them. Lobbying is cheaper and more effective.
Maybe the invisible hand will provide that API, since that's already an established semi-competitive market, but that just means that a legal mandate will funnel involuntary non-avoidable business to the few players in the space... Hmm... where have I heard that described before?
No, they're very expensive because it's a nightmare to create it yourself from scratch. Once it's done once, it costs nothing to reproduce the tables/software. But because they know it would take $x to create from scratch, charging 0.25 x $x is a reasonable value proposition.
But that's utterly, naively, massively ignorantly beside the point. "Reasonable value proposition" is lying dead under the wheels of the huge bus "What the market will bear" is driving.
The "nightmare" of creating accurate, legally viable tax tables across literally thousands of tax jursidictions, plus the associated never-ending nightmare of keeping them current across those same thousands of tax jurisdictions, plus the omnipresent ubernightmare of liability if you get just ONE of those jurisdictions wrong... well, let's just say those are hellacious barriers to market entry, so those few companies already in the space pretty much have it to themselves. And under those circumstances, you'd have to be living in Pink Pony Unicorn Land to expect them to operate to a "reasonable value proposition". I think the correct expression for the business model is "squeeze it to the edge of extinction in order to milk it or as long as the near-monopoly lasts".
"Not missing any drones" may mean "Yeah, it's gone, but I don't miss it. It was always a cruel faithless bitch. It's gone forever, and and I'm, like, FREE, man. Free for the first time in YEARS."
Slashdot Mirror
The letter of the law allows for google's behavior, even if the spirit of the law requires people to pay their fair share.
As specified in the letter of the law. The letter of the law is the only valid way to specify "fair share".
Oh, you think there's some universal consensus-driven way to identify "fair share" without codifying it? Really? Do you really think an emotional, subjective mob can come up with "fair"? And if they can, maybe it should be put into law so it doesn't change with every fickle twitch of the spastic body politic.
You have heard of "rule of law", right? That's a good thing. The pronouncements of kings, mandarins, or other random retards doesn't decide fair or unfair, just or unjust. The law does. Juries don't decide charges or sentences, only verdicts. The law decides the other things.
Seriously. If the law isn't working, change the law. Ignoring the law in favor of a five-year-old's version of "fair" is demonstratably worse that what Google is doing.
Don't forget: "Global warming responsible for receding icepack on Titan"
Dirty little secret: This year's revolutionary is next year's tyrant.
Oh, maybe not so secret. There've even been...
<sunglasses>
songs about it.
The original TRS-80 was a wideband RF jammer. Cheap PCB design, plastic (unshielded) case, lots of ribbon cable external interconnects operating at megahertz frequencies.
One of the better ways to see whether the machine was frozen or just processing a long-running (but productive) internal loop was turn on an AM radio in the same room. Within about 3 feet, the RF noise would override all but the strongest stations and allow you to monitor the CPU's execution by the hums and burbles of the RF noise.
It's why the original TRS-80 became the Model I, rapidly superseded by the all-in-one Model III (with lots of internal shielding).
Another use for a rare earth metal with a significant Chinese production monopoly!
Thanks for pointing that out. I'm glad I was mistaken about Barcode Scanner's Freeness. Another reason I lucked out picking this app out of the crowd.
I can only speak for my specific case (Android, using Barcode Scanner app): the app displays the captured image, metadata about the capture, and a decode of the string (recognizing, for instance, that it's a URI QR). BUT does not just hie off to whatever website is indicated. The displayed URI string is clickable, and clicking it does open the URI in the default browser app, but it does take that much human intervention to navigate there.
A few notable specifics to compare with other situations:
(A) No OS-native QR code capability. It required an app from the Google App Store (free, but not Free). One of several, it appears.
(B) There is a configurable option "Retrieve more info" which, when enabled, looks up information about URI/URL QR codes as part of the decode. For instance, after ingesting the sample QR code from the Wikipedia "QR Code" article, the app correctly decodes the URI as "http://en.m.wikipedia.org", but with the "Retrieve more info" option enabled, it adds the descriptor "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"... which is the <Title> property at the top of that page, so I guess the app is retrieving the target URL internally and decoding the <Title> at least. Maybe that would be a buffer overflow vector for a well-crafted exploit, so I turn that option off.
If you're going to use a movie reference, at least understand which movie is being referred to.
I do believe that when the sun finally consumes this planet the last HP LaserJet 4 will finally die.
I'm actually skeptical of that, actually. In a billion years, hundreds of thousands of early-generation HP Laserjets will remain in orbit around the brown dwarf remnants of Sol, all blinking "PC LOAD LETTER" (because solar expansion burned away all the paper in the paper drawer).
I wondered how long this would take to come up.
"This" being "I use modern technology as a peripheral for really old technology."
Case in point: I use my early 2000s white box PC (Athlon XP 1800+) running CentOS Linux as a household server... and as an RS-232 serial terminal for a 1983 NorthStar Horizon (Z80 CPU, 64K memory, dual 5.25" floppies, running CP/M 2.2). And sometimes I use my 2012 Motorola Droid 4 smartphone as a wireless SSH terminal to get to the server, to run miniterm to access CP/M on this ancient piece of retro coolness. Because I'm stupid like that.
I was just amazed we still had electrotherapy clinics as of only a dozen years ago.
Now I'm not. Color me disappointed.
The irony of the "Free Market" is that it's not free. In fact, selling to the highest bidder makes it quite expensive.
Yeah, but there're still some pretty crippling limitations. Without NoScript, you wind up with your recent browser history (your "back button" history) polluted with dozens of copies of the same pages you're looking at already, except for slightly different embeded ad content URLs... you have to spam the back button until you hopefully climb out of the hole o' advertising fail and back to the actual predecessor page you meant. Assuming you don't overshoot.
You don't see the ads, but they still screw up your browsing experience.
Hold it. When did we suddenly transition to talking about the iOS app store?
The decision paralysis problem caused by having too many choices is pretty common. It's pretty much your prototypical "first world problem". And any product marketing itself as a consumer product is prone to it. "All things to all people" effectively winds up "too many things for any given person".
RMS is more about freedoms most consumers will never notice they don't have. "The freedom to examine and modify"? Sheesh. Most consumers don't even want to know how to open the hood on their car. Read, edit, compile, and deploy software?
Free Software is an awesome notion, but for the overwhelming majority it's as irrelevant as the freedom to rebuild you car's engine. If Ford welded hoods shut and promised convenient lifetime service at authorized service centers "for free" (i.e., already in the price of the vehicle), a huge number of consumers would jump on it.
Expect the proliferation of "No user-serviceable parts inside" stickers on software and firmware.
Capitalism marks bug report as "NOTABUG WONTFIX".
Committer adds comment "system works as designed."
Caretaker marks bug closed.
in 5... 4... 3... 2...
HTC is pretty ROM-friendly.
Motorola, OTOH, has locked bootloaders on all its line unless you bought a developer phone. So the easy romming of HTC is a fantasy for Moto owners. The nearest you can get is a 2nd stage preloader that overlays the alternate ROM during the boot process, but I still don't really trust it.
The ground operator of a drone, even an autonomous one, is the pilot of record. And I never tease a military pilot about how short they are. They're very sensitive to that, considering I was a hulking enlisted.
And, yes, ScanEagle does use a ground control system for real-time mission management. ScanEagles do fly autonomously, and can do so to a completely pre-planned mission plan, but I think the preferred mode of operation is by real-time control, so that the UAV can be commanded to take a closer look at "interesting stuff". I don't think the real-time control is stick-and-throttle stuff like other UAVs use... more like mission command plus navigation. But that's just speculation on my part.
It isn't a big deal because it's actually airspace over international waters that Iran fantasizes is their national domain.
Or haven't you heard? Apparently almost the entire Persian Gulf is theirs, because it's Persian.
They allow international shipping through their Strait of Hormuz out of the beneficience of their kindly hearts.
Oh, that's just hax.
Or, to the English-impaired, "that's just h@xx0r".
Not to mention, since some random Slashdot reader thought of it, don't you think our venerable lawmakers would as well (man, that one almost hurt to say)?
And do what about it, pray tell? Pass another law making it illegal to change corporate headquarters to a tax haven? If they could have effectively done that, it would have been done decades ago.
No, undoubtedly, our august legislators have thought about that very thing, which is precisely why the had the good sense not to publicly embarrass themselves by suggesting something as hair-brained and utterly unworkable.
Hold it. You don't monitor full disclosure security websites yourself?
It's called "Intel". It's worth the effort.
Full disclosure is only a problem if you don't take advantage of it yourself. Otherwise, it's embarrasing when your customers do your job for you, or when the blackhats do a little personal disclosure on your assets.
Yeah, yeah, I know. There aren't enough hours in the day, you don't have enough staff, etc., etc. That just means management isn't prioritizing and allocating correctly. That still means "you" are doing it wrong, in the collective organizational sense of "you".
You're proactive, or you're a victim. This is reality. You're just lucky your customers feel invested in helping you, even if out of self-defense.
As if states were the only problem.
Municipalities, counties, and any number of subordinate jurisdictions will howl--very effectively--if they're left off the gravy train. And that increases the complexity of the tax calculation problem by orders of magnitude. And you know for damn sure no state will buy into a system that makes work for them. Lobbying is cheaper and more effective.
Maybe the invisible hand will provide that API, since that's already an established semi-competitive market, but that just means that a legal mandate will funnel involuntary non-avoidable business to the few players in the space... Hmm... where have I heard that described before?
No, they're very expensive because it's a nightmare to create it yourself from scratch. Once it's done once, it costs nothing to reproduce the tables/software. But because they know it would take $x to create from scratch, charging 0.25 x $x is a reasonable value proposition.
But that's utterly, naively, massively ignorantly beside the point. "Reasonable value proposition" is lying dead under the wheels of the huge bus "What the market will bear" is driving.
The "nightmare" of creating accurate, legally viable tax tables across literally thousands of tax jursidictions, plus the associated never-ending nightmare of keeping them current across those same thousands of tax jurisdictions, plus the omnipresent ubernightmare of liability if you get just ONE of those jurisdictions wrong... well, let's just say those are hellacious barriers to market entry, so those few companies already in the space pretty much have it to themselves. And under those circumstances, you'd have to be living in Pink Pony Unicorn Land to expect them to operate to a "reasonable value proposition". I think the correct expression for the business model is "squeeze it to the edge of extinction in order to milk it or as long as the near-monopoly lasts".
"Not missing any drones" may mean "Yeah, it's gone, but I don't miss it. It was always a cruel faithless bitch. It's gone forever, and and I'm, like, FREE, man. Free for the first time in YEARS."