I wasn't saying I agreed with it--I don't use any Apple products specifically because I don't like their lock-in practices. They still move tons of hardware, regardless.
So? I didn't dispute that. I just disputed the notion that Apple's lock-in practices are hurting them. If sales of iPhones and iPads are anything to go by, Steve Jobs is laughing all the way to the bank about "vendor lock-in."
The summary says it doesn't require one, and the implication on Humane's website is the same. It makes no sense to design a device for areas without Internet connectivity and then require it to have an Internet connection!
You might want to check out the statistics as related by the company making these devices. The developing world has a glut of TVs but very few computers and little Internet access. These devices can help fill that gap.
The science of all this is pretty settled by now. If you don't accept it, that's your problem.
I love how everybody thinks they're a climate scientist now, though. I am not. If the broader community of climate scientists says anthropogenic global warming is happening, I am inclined to believe them. Even the scandals that have come out (Climategate, etc.) have done very little to poke holes in the underlying science.
I'll start to question the whole thing if and when it looks like climate science has fractured and the community is disintegrating. Instead, the consensus is only building and skeptics are coming into the fold, convinced by the evidence.
Thank you for the above. You've outlined why I have such a hard time discussing climate change in general.
You get the people who think the world isn't heating up. Show them the evidence, they still discount it.
You get the people who will acknowledge that the world is warming up, but insist humanity has nothing to do with it. Show them the evidence, they still discount it.
Then, you get the people who are willing to accept that it is happening and that we are largely responsible, but think the whole problem will sort itself out so we shouldn't make any changes. Well, at least that's a place to start discussion, I guess.
But, as with so many other things, reasonable voices are drowned out by the extremists--the "do-nothing" crowd that thinks climate change will take care of itself, and the "down with civilization" crowd that would happily use combating climate change as a pretext for setting technology back 500 years. There has got to be a happy medium with reasonable solutions that, yes, will be painful, difficult, and long-term, but survivable--and not nearly as painful as the genuine possibility of making our planet uninhabitable.
I think that, if you are in a public area, and the target of your recording is also in a public area, whatever means you wish to use to record them should be legal. You should have no expectation of privacy when you're on a public street, in a park, etc. If you're having a sensitive conversation and are worried about eavesdroppers, do it at home or the office or somewhere that's not a public venue.
I think this is a lot more sensible than waffling and saying "some kinds of surveillance are OK and some kinds aren't," especially when they're so seemingly arbitrary. Video is OK, audio isn't? How much sense does that make?
Going by your example, what if you had a video camera with an extremely powerful zoom? Should that be as illegal as the parabolic mic?
Sometimes the law requires complexity, but this does not appear to be a case where it does. The laws regarding privacy in public should be short and sweet so everyone can easily understand them and it'll be very cut-and-dried as to whether you've run afoul.
"Unsupported OS" means "unsupported OS." The vendor disavows any responsibility for bad things that happen when using their software on your unsupported platform.
This is a common thing for software vendors to do to close out tickets quickly. If it's an unsupported scenario (hardware, software, use case, etc.) then they can close it and keep their average ticket lifetime down.
A little shady, I guess, but if they never claimed to support your platform I don't see what you could really complain about.
I do not see how a conversation held on a public street can be considered "private." If I'm walking through Manhattan and I happen to have an audio recorder on, capturing the conversations of everyone around me, am I breaking the law? (Granted, I'll end up with an incomprehensible noise.)
It seems rather bizarre that it would be legal to record video but not audio. Laws should be sensible and obvious in everyday situations, and this is neither.
I've seen the exact same thing. There are times when I have to drive up to Bergen County in New Jersey. You go through a whole bunch of small towns, along the same road. In one town, the speed limit will be 45. In the next, it's 35. In the next, it's 25. There was no discernible difference between the towns, either--no schools or anything else to provide a reasonable justification for the sudden drop in speed limit. It's just that cops in the 35 and 25 towns are huge assholes and keep the speed limits low to catch people who think it's still 45 or 35. I know not to speed through the town where it's 25, too, because the cops there patrol like crazy to keep their revenue stream.
Speed limits are supposedly about "safety" but it's pretty clear that safety falls by the wayside when there's money to be made.
I don't see how it could be legal for Apple to brick your phone. However, your carrier might place restrictions on what you're allowed to do with the phone on their network.
I think the issue is that Apple can't do anything to you, because you own the phone and Apple is not who you have your contract with.
I suspect there is nothing to stop the carriers from acting punitively, though, since they do have a right to control what's on their network.
The issue isn't one of copyright but contract. Actors, writers, and directors in particular are all bound by contracts--either the boilerplate contracts from their respective guild (SAG, WGA, DGA) or a specific contract for the film in question. Those establish royalties and may or may not permit additional control over the film.
To use a film clip in a TV show, for instance, you may need permission not only from the studio, but also from the actors, writers, and director, depending on how their contracts were negotiated. Even if you're the studio that owns the film, you would have to do this.
A studio may have exclusive distribution rights for a film but that doesn't mean they have unfettered control over its use or get all the royalties. When it comes to major studio films, who holds the copyright just isn't that important because so many contracts are involved that divide control and proceeds among so many people.
With storage media as cheap as they are now, it should be cost effective for just about anyone to keep a few local copies, maybe an additional copy on a third-party service, and periodic backups onto flash drives or DVDs tossed into a safe deposit box. Naturally, how anal you are about your backups should correspond to the relative importance of the data. Your NWN2 saved games are going to be of substantially lower backup priority than your family photos and financial data.
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I wasn't saying I agreed with it--I don't use any Apple products specifically because I don't like their lock-in practices. They still move tons of hardware, regardless.
So? I didn't dispute that. I just disputed the notion that Apple's lock-in practices are hurting them. If sales of iPhones and iPads are anything to go by, Steve Jobs is laughing all the way to the bank about "vendor lock-in."
I wouldn't call Apple's vendor lock-in an "Achilles heel" given that the vast majority of their customers don't give a shit about it.
Once again, Microsoft is late to the party and Ballmer's pissed. Hey, Steve, your company has never been a trendsetter! Deal with it.
I'm no Apple fan, but a company that can create markets out of thin air for products everyone else assumed would fail has to be doing something right.
No, you just misread it. Or I was not clear enough. The "gap" being filled is one of information, not Internet access.
The summary says it doesn't require one, and the implication on Humane's website is the same. It makes no sense to design a device for areas without Internet connectivity and then require it to have an Internet connection!
Yeah, most Americans seem to be A-OK with the concept of prison rape as a "bonus" to your incarceration, especially if you are guilty of a sex crime.
Many people have no understanding of "justice" and think it is indistinguishable from revenge.
Those interested in "culling the herd" are curiously almost never interested in offing themselves.
You might want to check out the statistics as related by the company making these devices. The developing world has a glut of TVs but very few computers and little Internet access. These devices can help fill that gap.
The science of all this is pretty settled by now. If you don't accept it, that's your problem.
I love how everybody thinks they're a climate scientist now, though. I am not. If the broader community of climate scientists says anthropogenic global warming is happening, I am inclined to believe them. Even the scandals that have come out (Climategate, etc.) have done very little to poke holes in the underlying science.
I'll start to question the whole thing if and when it looks like climate science has fractured and the community is disintegrating. Instead, the consensus is only building and skeptics are coming into the fold, convinced by the evidence.
Thank you for the above. You've outlined why I have such a hard time discussing climate change in general.
You get the people who think the world isn't heating up. Show them the evidence, they still discount it.
You get the people who will acknowledge that the world is warming up, but insist humanity has nothing to do with it. Show them the evidence, they still discount it.
Then, you get the people who are willing to accept that it is happening and that we are largely responsible, but think the whole problem will sort itself out so we shouldn't make any changes. Well, at least that's a place to start discussion, I guess.
But, as with so many other things, reasonable voices are drowned out by the extremists--the "do-nothing" crowd that thinks climate change will take care of itself, and the "down with civilization" crowd that would happily use combating climate change as a pretext for setting technology back 500 years. There has got to be a happy medium with reasonable solutions that, yes, will be painful, difficult, and long-term, but survivable--and not nearly as painful as the genuine possibility of making our planet uninhabitable.
Same here. I don't play Facebook games--I disable the notifications for them.
I read people's status updates when I feel like it. I update mine occasionally.
I check my FB maybe once every week or two.
I do find it a useful way to chat with people (through XMPP), since some of my friends don't use any IM clients.
I also keep the privacy settings locked down.
I use FB to the degree I want and ignore the stuff I don't care about. Why is this so difficult for some people?
A ticket like that, you should go to court over. If you get a judge that isn't insane they'd throw it out.
Unfortunately, he did too much LDS and it interferes with his ODC.
I think that, if you are in a public area, and the target of your recording is also in a public area, whatever means you wish to use to record them should be legal. You should have no expectation of privacy when you're on a public street, in a park, etc. If you're having a sensitive conversation and are worried about eavesdroppers, do it at home or the office or somewhere that's not a public venue.
I think this is a lot more sensible than waffling and saying "some kinds of surveillance are OK and some kinds aren't," especially when they're so seemingly arbitrary. Video is OK, audio isn't? How much sense does that make?
Going by your example, what if you had a video camera with an extremely powerful zoom? Should that be as illegal as the parabolic mic?
Sometimes the law requires complexity, but this does not appear to be a case where it does. The laws regarding privacy in public should be short and sweet so everyone can easily understand them and it'll be very cut-and-dried as to whether you've run afoul.
Why? Are you making obscene gestures with it? Moving it up and down really rapidly?
"Unsupported OS" means "unsupported OS." The vendor disavows any responsibility for bad things that happen when using their software on your unsupported platform.
This is a common thing for software vendors to do to close out tickets quickly. If it's an unsupported scenario (hardware, software, use case, etc.) then they can close it and keep their average ticket lifetime down.
A little shady, I guess, but if they never claimed to support your platform I don't see what you could really complain about.
This is very true. Whistleblowers have some protection but it is still dangerous to be one, and especially dangerous to be a very public one.
I do not see how a conversation held on a public street can be considered "private." If I'm walking through Manhattan and I happen to have an audio recorder on, capturing the conversations of everyone around me, am I breaking the law? (Granted, I'll end up with an incomprehensible noise.)
It seems rather bizarre that it would be legal to record video but not audio. Laws should be sensible and obvious in everyday situations, and this is neither.
I've seen the exact same thing. There are times when I have to drive up to Bergen County in New Jersey. You go through a whole bunch of small towns, along the same road. In one town, the speed limit will be 45. In the next, it's 35. In the next, it's 25. There was no discernible difference between the towns, either--no schools or anything else to provide a reasonable justification for the sudden drop in speed limit. It's just that cops in the 35 and 25 towns are huge assholes and keep the speed limits low to catch people who think it's still 45 or 35. I know not to speed through the town where it's 25, too, because the cops there patrol like crazy to keep their revenue stream.
Speed limits are supposedly about "safety" but it's pretty clear that safety falls by the wayside when there's money to be made.
I don't see how it could be legal for Apple to brick your phone. However, your carrier might place restrictions on what you're allowed to do with the phone on their network.
I think the issue is that Apple can't do anything to you, because you own the phone and Apple is not who you have your contract with.
I suspect there is nothing to stop the carriers from acting punitively, though, since they do have a right to control what's on their network.
Marriages are in the public record, too. Did you complain about that when you got hitched?
The issue isn't one of copyright but contract. Actors, writers, and directors in particular are all bound by contracts--either the boilerplate contracts from their respective guild (SAG, WGA, DGA) or a specific contract for the film in question. Those establish royalties and may or may not permit additional control over the film.
To use a film clip in a TV show, for instance, you may need permission not only from the studio, but also from the actors, writers, and director, depending on how their contracts were negotiated. Even if you're the studio that owns the film, you would have to do this.
A studio may have exclusive distribution rights for a film but that doesn't mean they have unfettered control over its use or get all the royalties. When it comes to major studio films, who holds the copyright just isn't that important because so many contracts are involved that divide control and proceeds among so many people.
The joke's on them! My rate's locked in!
With storage media as cheap as they are now, it should be cost effective for just about anyone to keep a few local copies, maybe an additional copy on a third-party service, and periodic backups onto flash drives or DVDs tossed into a safe deposit box. Naturally, how anal you are about your backups should correspond to the relative importance of the data. Your NWN2 saved games are going to be of substantially lower backup priority than your family photos and financial data.