It's not pedantic. Your claim that iBeacon tracks you is wrong is a big way not a small way.
The entire point of the iBeacon system is to allow stores to track you with your permission.
No it's not. It's to enable location services whilst inside. And it's so that you can be sent advertising, such as special offers when you are in the vicinity of a store. It doesn't track you any more than a billboard tracks you,
It's like saying "Wifi AP's don't track you. All they do is receive your Wifi MAC address. Sure, the information is sent elsewhere to be tracked, but the AP doesn't do it, therefore you aren't being tracked by Wifi."
No it's not, because you are still avoiding the fact that iBeacons are transmit only. It's comparable to GPS satellites, not wifi APs. Wifi APs know that you are there. iBeacons do not.
Just accept you made a mistake. This is not something you can argue your way around.
I'm not promoting the particular management of limiting the number of taxis, but the general principle that roads in general and taxis in particular need standards, regulation and management. Your road fees and varying of the fee structure is just another way of doing this, and I'm not against it, so long as taxis and taxi drivers are still licensed. (The license procedure checks for things like ability to drive, insurance, a suitable vehicle, etc.)
I wouldn't be okay with that, which is why I'd raise her appropriately. I mean, it didn't occur to me to choose such an option, and it wouldn't have occurred to me when I was a teen, either, so I know this is doable.
So you're advocating a downgrade in standards for other people, that you don't care about. But not for your nearest and dearest. So who is your idea supposed to serve again?
The key words here are "without the responsibility". That is exactly the problem. If you dodge your responsibility, it doesn't go away - it just gets delegated elsewhere.
Absolutely. And it simply is not possible to take personal responsibility for investigating the safety of every single product and service you use. There isn't time, even if you devoted every minute of every day of your life to the task. Even if is was possible, there's nothing noble to being forced into doing so because there are no standards and regulations.
It's one of the glaring holes in the whole libertarian philosophy.
We have governments settling and enforcing standards because that is the most rational thing to do. Have a department who have the knowledge, time and powers to investigate and enforce standards on products and services for us.
the end result is $1M for a taxi license in NYC
People pay that for the same reason they buy a house for $1M. They get to use it for a number of years, then expect to sell it for even more than $1M.
I don't know NY personally, but do you see any shortage of Taxis? In the live TV shots I've seen, it doesn't look like it. All of them regulated. Who gains from them not being regulated, by a proportion being unsafe vehicles with inappropriate drivers? Nobody.
Again, that's not iBeacon sending anything to the stores. That's an app using the internet via wifi or GSM. That the app also uses iBeacon to know where it is indoors is simply an app using 2 different technologies.
That implication you are making that iBeacon lets stores track you is as ridiculous as saying that GPS lets stores track you. A broadcast only technology cannot track you.
Because the natural level is a Pareto efficient state,
No it's not. Consider the tragedy of the commons. It proves beyond doubt that the natural exploitation of a resource is not the one that is optimally best for most people.
And I'm suggesting that supplying a city with taxis is certainly one that could be a tragedy of the commons.
And because it follows from accepting that people are autonomous agents, and have the most knowledge about their own lifes, which is something we should strive for from an ethical point of view.
No man is an island. What one person does affects other people. Thinking abut what is best for society provides better outcomes than promoting everyone acting in their own self-interest. Selfishness is not ethics.
You may not have noticed that I was arguing for more languages, not less. I'm not suggesting anyone takes away your C, though I do have to wonder why you're too much of a pussy to write your drivers in assembler.
My comparison was between Objective-C and Swift. Both languages for higher level libraries and apps. The former sadly let down by it's C underpinnings.
Who's wrong? It took two years from Apple purchasing PA Semi to having their own CPU design in a shipping device.
But Synaptics won't be doing anything but bending over backwards to keep Apple happy. Even Samsung, who at the device level are constantly in a law-suit battle with Apple, at the chip level, Samsung plays like the good little supplier to Apple.
I'm a old fogey. And I welcome new programming languages. Because the existing ones suck so much.
When do you suggest we should have stopped? With COBOL as the major language? or C? With PHP as the major web language? With PERL is the major scripting language?
Bring forth every language anyone wishes to invent, and let the good ones rise to the top.
Software quality is a different issue. And most of it is in unrelated to language. But on the language side, new languages can help. Take Swift vs Objective-C. Many or most fatal bugs and security vulnerabilities with C languages revolve around stray pointers, exceeding bounds, and omitting breaks in case statements or braces around if blocks. These are simply not possible in the new language. And thus software quality will be improved.
And what you wrote was not right. "if you just don't download/authorize the stores app to get the iBeacon messages" There are no such iBeacon messages that the store can get. The stores transmit them, they don't receive them.
if [particularly the larger chains] a store puts in a bunch of iBeacon hardware, it's not a lot of extra money to get BT hardware that both transmits the iBeacon messages and also logs what BT devices are broadcasting around it, which your phone's BT hardware does.
Then they don't need the iBeacon part. iBeacon is playing no part of sniffing the air looking for discoverable Bluetooth phones.
On the other hand, if John Doe next door thinks that he doesn't really need some or all of this is he gets a cheap ride, I don't see why it should be any of my business to tell him that he can't have it.
And your (perhaps hypothetical) teenage daughter?You're OK that she chooses the cheap option and is driven by a ex-con rapist with no insurance and a car with defective brakes?
Sorry, but your suggestion is silly. I believe you when you say you want this, but most people don't. They want decent standards upheld without the responsibility for having to monitor it put upon themselves.
No. Uber cars are licensed Private Hire Vehicles, which in London are not allowed to have Taximeters. Only Taxis are. It makes no sense, but that's the way it is.
In other cities in the UK, the situation varies: some allow private hire vehicles to have taximeters, some require it.
Uber UK doesn't hire them unless they are licensed private hire drivers. And you can't get a private hire license without a driving license, commercial insurance, a criminal records check, etc.
So yes you won't find one that hasn't.
I don't care how laughable you find it. Not everywhere is like the states.
If there are other, more well paid jobs to have, it wont be, as taxi drivers will chose other occupations.
Real people don't behave like numbers in an economics text-book. This is easy to see as economists are wrong as often as they are right when they try to predict a future trend.
Take the acting profession in the UK. A poll was recently done of people who consider themselves professional actors - to the extent that they spend UKP 150 on a professional casting website.
The average wage in the UK is UKP 26,500 per annum. Poverty level for a single person with no dependants is said to be below UKP 6600.
Only 2% of actors were earning UKP 20,000 or more. 75% were earning less than £5000.
A taxi is not much more road space consuming per traveler than having a private car.
Sure, and if well balanced, it's better to have taxis in use than cars parked. But the point is that your equilibrium may not be at the point that's well balanced for this. And taxis running round without passengers are extra vehicles on the road.
My point remains beyond dispute. The equilibrium that is reached naturally is not logically connected to any of the levels that are actually good for the various different people affected.
Water "finds it's own level". But that level may be a flood or a drought. Most of the time we don't have a problem with water's level. But that's because we have adapted to what water conditions normally are, avoiding desert and (mostly) avoiding flood plain Why should we have to adapt to the natural level of taxis, rather than manage the level to suit us?
Taximeters were never meant to be a privilege. They are there to protect the public. They are specific approved machines, inspected and sealed by the licensing body, that sets a maximum charge for a journey. They have other requirements like the display has to be visible to the passenger, and there has to be a flag that indicates when a fare is being charged, also connected to the For Hire light.
In none of the significant ways does an iPhone app match the legal description of a taximeter.
If Black Cab drivers think they have a unique monopoly on the use of software that calculates a fee from a given distance and time, they are insane. But of course they are not insane, they are just grasping the only short straw they see, hoping to keep technology enabled competition at bay.
London is NOT unique in doing the "knowledge". I can only speak for Scotland however each council here requires all black hack drivers to do the knowledge for their license area... i just pity the poor fuckers in the Highlands who have a gargantuan area to commit to memory!
The highlands may be a large area, but there's not much in it. And a short set of multiple choice questions in a small city or rural county does not in any way compare with the London Knowledge. A local would be able to answer the Scottish tests. The London Knowledge takes years of study, travelling round and round London on a scooter, even for a Londoner. There is no city in the world that compares with The Knowledge in London. And certainly not in Scotland.
In the UK all Uber cars are licensed Private Hire vehicles, with licensed private hire drivers. Including UberX. There is no such casual driving with unlicensed vehicle such as you describe. It's illegal.
But Uber in London and Manchester do every item that you've listed. Which is why they are legal. And I see no reason to suppose they won't also be able to operate in Edinburgh and Glasgow when they get round to it.
If the device has flashing LEDs, bright backlights, etc., OK I see the point. If it simply bothers people that someone in there is a geek, then I'll just wait for someone to ban the gays, the blacks and my favorite annoyance, hipsters.
Don't be a drama queen. Geeks aren't banned. Google Glass is, whilst the movie is showing.
It should be noted that just as Apple funnel their European profits through Ireland, so does Google and Microsoft. Both equally relevant to tech geeks.
You'd have thought Google would have copied the iOS approach to permissions by now.
(Denying a permission doesn't stop the whole app from working if there are things that the app can do without the permission. Permissions are requested from the user when the app first tries to do the restricted thing. They may be accepted or denied, and may be changed at any time in the future.)
Slashdot Mirror
It's not pedantic. Your claim that iBeacon tracks you is wrong is a big way not a small way.
The entire point of the iBeacon system is to allow stores to track you with your permission.
No it's not. It's to enable location services whilst inside. And it's so that you can be sent advertising, such as special offers when you are in the vicinity of a store. It doesn't track you any more than a billboard tracks you,
It's like saying "Wifi AP's don't track you. All they do is receive your Wifi MAC address. Sure, the information is sent elsewhere to be tracked, but the AP doesn't do it, therefore you aren't being tracked by Wifi."
No it's not, because you are still avoiding the fact that iBeacons are transmit only. It's comparable to GPS satellites, not wifi APs. Wifi APs know that you are there. iBeacons do not.
Just accept you made a mistake. This is not something you can argue your way around.
I'm not promoting the particular management of limiting the number of taxis, but the general principle that roads in general and taxis in particular need standards, regulation and management. Your road fees and varying of the fee structure is just another way of doing this, and I'm not against it, so long as taxis and taxi drivers are still licensed. (The license procedure checks for things like ability to drive, insurance, a suitable vehicle, etc.)
I wouldn't be okay with that, which is why I'd raise her appropriately. I mean, it didn't occur to me to choose such an option, and it wouldn't have occurred to me when I was a teen, either, so I know this is doable.
So you're advocating a downgrade in standards for other people, that you don't care about. But not for your nearest and dearest. So who is your idea supposed to serve again?
The key words here are "without the responsibility". That is exactly the problem. If you dodge your responsibility, it doesn't go away - it just gets delegated elsewhere.
Absolutely. And it simply is not possible to take personal responsibility for investigating the safety of every single product and service you use. There isn't time, even if you devoted every minute of every day of your life to the task. Even if is was possible, there's nothing noble to being forced into doing so because there are no standards and regulations.
It's one of the glaring holes in the whole libertarian philosophy.
We have governments settling and enforcing standards because that is the most rational thing to do. Have a department who have the knowledge, time and powers to investigate and enforce standards on products and services for us.
the end result is $1M for a taxi license in NYC
People pay that for the same reason they buy a house for $1M. They get to use it for a number of years, then expect to sell it for even more than $1M.
I don't know NY personally, but do you see any shortage of Taxis? In the live TV shots I've seen, it doesn't look like it. All of them regulated. Who gains from them not being regulated, by a proportion being unsafe vehicles with inappropriate drivers? Nobody.
It's a stupid idea from the libertarian loons.
That was just "a" chip and it actually sort of sucked. To be in a top of the line premium phone
It didn't suck. It *was* the SOC for a top of the line premium phone.
Again, that's not iBeacon sending anything to the stores. That's an app using the internet via wifi or GSM. That the app also uses iBeacon to know where it is indoors is simply an app using 2 different technologies.
That implication you are making that iBeacon lets stores track you is as ridiculous as saying that GPS lets stores track you. A broadcast only technology cannot track you.
Because the natural level is a Pareto efficient state,
No it's not. Consider the tragedy of the commons. It proves beyond doubt that the natural exploitation of a resource is not the one that is optimally best for most people.
And I'm suggesting that supplying a city with taxis is certainly one that could be a tragedy of the commons.
And because it follows from accepting that people are autonomous agents, and have the most knowledge about their own lifes, which is something we should strive for from an ethical point of view.
No man is an island. What one person does affects other people. Thinking abut what is best for society provides better outcomes than promoting everyone acting in their own self-interest. Selfishness is not ethics.
You may not have noticed that I was arguing for more languages, not less. I'm not suggesting anyone takes away your C, though I do have to wonder why you're too much of a pussy to write your drivers in assembler.
My comparison was between Objective-C and Swift. Both languages for higher level libraries and apps. The former sadly let down by it's C underpinnings.
Who's wrong? It took two years from Apple purchasing PA Semi to having their own CPU design in a shipping device.
But Synaptics won't be doing anything but bending over backwards to keep Apple happy. Even Samsung, who at the device level are constantly in a law-suit battle with Apple, at the chip level, Samsung plays like the good little supplier to Apple.
I'm a old fogey. And I welcome new programming languages. Because the existing ones suck so much.
When do you suggest we should have stopped? With COBOL as the major language? or C? With PHP as the major web language? With PERL is the major scripting language?
Bring forth every language anyone wishes to invent, and let the good ones rise to the top.
Software quality is a different issue. And most of it is in unrelated to language. But on the language side, new languages can help. Take Swift vs Objective-C. Many or most fatal bugs and security vulnerabilities with C languages revolve around stray pointers, exceeding bounds, and omitting breaks in case statements or braces around if blocks. These are simply not possible in the new language. And thus software quality will be improved.
And what you wrote was not right.
"if you just don't download/authorize the stores app to get the iBeacon messages"
There are no such iBeacon messages that the store can get. The stores transmit them, they don't receive them.
if [particularly the larger chains] a store puts in a bunch of iBeacon hardware, it's not a lot of extra money to get BT hardware that both transmits the iBeacon messages and also logs what BT devices are broadcasting around it, which your phone's BT hardware does.
Then they don't need the iBeacon part. iBeacon is playing no part of sniffing the air looking for discoverable Bluetooth phones.
On the other hand, if John Doe next door thinks that he doesn't really need some or all of this is he gets a cheap ride, I don't see why it should be any of my business to tell him that he can't have it.
And your (perhaps hypothetical) teenage daughter?You're OK that she chooses the cheap option and is driven by a ex-con rapist with no insurance and a car with defective brakes?
Sorry, but your suggestion is silly. I believe you when you say you want this, but most people don't. They want decent standards upheld without the responsibility for having to monitor it put upon themselves.
No. Uber cars are licensed Private Hire Vehicles, which in London are not allowed to have Taximeters. Only Taxis are. It makes no sense, but that's the way it is.
In other cities in the UK, the situation varies: some allow private hire vehicles to have taximeters, some require it.
Uber UK doesn't hire them unless they are licensed private hire drivers. And you can't get a private hire license without a driving license, commercial insurance, a criminal records check, etc.
So yes you won't find one that hasn't.
I don't care how laughable you find it. Not everywhere is like the states.
If there are other, more well paid jobs to have, it wont be, as taxi drivers will chose other occupations.
Real people don't behave like numbers in an economics text-book. This is easy to see as economists are wrong as often as they are right when they try to predict a future trend.
Take the acting profession in the UK. A poll was recently done of people who consider themselves professional actors - to the extent that they spend UKP 150 on a professional casting website.
The average wage in the UK is UKP 26,500 per annum. Poverty level for a single person with no dependants is said to be below UKP 6600.
Only 2% of actors were earning UKP 20,000 or more.
75% were earning less than £5000.
A taxi is not much more road space consuming per traveler than having a private car.
Sure, and if well balanced, it's better to have taxis in use than cars parked. But the point is that your equilibrium may not be at the point that's well balanced for this. And taxis running round without passengers are extra vehicles on the road.
My point remains beyond dispute. The equilibrium that is reached naturally is not logically connected to any of the levels that are actually good for the various different people affected.
Water "finds it's own level". But that level may be a flood or a drought. Most of the time we don't have a problem with water's level. But that's because we have adapted to what water conditions normally are, avoiding desert and (mostly) avoiding flood plain Why should we have to adapt to the natural level of taxis, rather than manage the level to suit us?
Taximeters were never meant to be a privilege. They are there to protect the public. They are specific approved machines, inspected and sealed by the licensing body, that sets a maximum charge for a journey. They have other requirements like the display has to be visible to the passenger, and there has to be a flag that indicates when a fare is being charged, also connected to the For Hire light.
In none of the significant ways does an iPhone app match the legal description of a taximeter.
If Black Cab drivers think they have a unique monopoly on the use of software that calculates a fee from a given distance and time, they are insane. But of course they are not insane, they are just grasping the only short straw they see, hoping to keep technology enabled competition at bay.
None of which is relevant given that Uber in the UK only employes licensed Private Hire drivers with licensed Private Hire cars.
London is NOT unique in doing the "knowledge". I can only speak for Scotland however each council here requires all black hack drivers to do the knowledge for their license area... i just pity the poor fuckers in the Highlands who have a gargantuan area to commit to memory!
The highlands may be a large area, but there's not much in it.
And a short set of multiple choice questions in a small city or rural county does not in any way compare with the London Knowledge. A local would be able to answer the Scottish tests. The London Knowledge takes years of study, travelling round and round London on a scooter, even for a Londoner. There is no city in the world that compares with The Knowledge in London. And certainly not in Scotland.
How did you manage to miss the fact that I twice pointed out I was talking about London. I wrote it in the first sentence and the last.
Manchester, where Uber also operates have taximeters in private hire vehicles. But London does not.
In UK law, use of the highway is considered a legal right.
No it's not. There are plenty of ways on which you can be quite legally prevented from progressing down a road.
And as I already pointed out the police approved this demonstration, just as they approve most other demonstrations, most of which disrupt traffic.
In the UK all Uber cars are licensed Private Hire vehicles, with licensed private hire drivers. Including UberX. There is no such casual driving with unlicensed vehicle such as you describe. It's illegal.
But Uber in London and Manchester do every item that you've listed. Which is why they are legal. And I see no reason to suppose they won't also be able to operate in Edinburgh and Glasgow when they get round to it.
I already pointed out it wasn't a picket, it was a demonstration.
If the device has flashing LEDs, bright backlights, etc., OK I see the point. If it simply bothers people that someone in there is a geek, then I'll just wait for someone to ban the gays, the blacks and my favorite annoyance, hipsters.
Don't be a drama queen. Geeks aren't banned. Google Glass is, whilst the movie is showing.
It should be noted that just as Apple funnel their European profits through Ireland, so does Google and Microsoft. Both equally relevant to tech geeks.
You'd have thought Google would have copied the iOS approach to permissions by now.
(Denying a permission doesn't stop the whole app from working if there are things that the app can do without the permission. Permissions are requested from the user when the app first tries to do the restricted thing. They may be accepted or denied, and may be changed at any time in the future.)