The problem isn't corporate involvement. The problem is when corporate involvement leads down the path we're seeing Canonical take with Ubuntu, where they start shoving ads in your face.
It fundamentally disrespects the user as it becomes apparent that you've given up on making them the customer and decided to sell them like livestock. It's why Facebook is so reviled on Slashdot, and why I can't stand most handset manufacturers (they build for the carriers and not the people who actually use the devices.)
But then don't use Ubuntu. One things corporations respond to is user base. If Canonicals actions with Ubuntu displease users so they quit using Ubuntu, then Canonical will change what it is doing. As long as Canonical maintains its user base, however, things will keep on going the way they are.
In linux, free as in beer also means that you are free to use whatever distribution you want.
Does that work if you want to remove your content from Google News or just the regular Google search engine? It seems that scans of news media occurs much more frequently than regular sites.
What do you mean that Google doesn't serve anything? Sites don't forward information to Google. Google goes out and harvests it, then when you do a search they display it.
Companies have specifically asked to be delisted from the search engine and Google has said no.
When newspapers stop printing and delivering physical newspapers, most if not all union workers will be out of work. I don't think the unions will allow that, preferring (as with Hostess) that the company go out of business rather than switch to a model that excludes them.
The bakers at Hostess are scapegoats, they didn't want the company to go out of business. They were set up for this role by being ask to take huge concessions that for many of them would have put their net pay below minimum wage.
What did Hostess in was not the bakers. There are 20% fewer children in the US today than in the 1960s. That is the primary market for their products. In addition, with all the stuff about trans-fats and the like, sales of their key products have been in decline (just like kryspy cream doughnuts).
All during this time, management could have been making strategic changes with their product line but they chose not to do so. It's not the unions that killed Hostess, it was the management.
It's all too easy to blame the union workers for the blight of business, but it is the management of business that makes the decisions that sink it, not the workers.
Personally, I don't value online newspapers for the same reason I stopped buying physical papers. I don't see the point in paying someone else to filter the news of the world through a particular agenda. I would rather have access to the raw feed (if available) and make my own decisions about what's important to me.
You realize that such use is fleeting. More and more sites will go to a pay wall system, particularly as their paper versions can no longer foot the bill for providing free on line access. These companies do need to make pay bills.
So, unless by raw feed you mean anonymous people posting twitter and you tube videos, you won't even have that. Then again, by what means do you have to assess that the person(s) posting such content on their own doesn't have their own agenda?
I don't pay for a news service to filter the news for me (although I undrestand that Google filters my search results based on previous searches). I pay for a news service to condense all of the news so that I can zero in on the things that I find pertinent.
They are talking about Google News, not Google Search. There is a difference. Google News is like the newspaper sitting at the newstand, you are free to look at the headlines, but you aren't free to pick it up and start reading it, at least that is the argument being made.
WallStreet Journal is a good example. You can find an article in the WSJ on Google, however, going to the link only gets you the summary on the WSJ, you need to subscribe to get the full article. Same with a lot of publications. What Google is doing, though, is snatching the articles behind the paywalls and serving them up.
All the content providers are saying is that if they charge the public for full access, Google (and others) can't serve it up free.
One would think that an online only newspaper could still survive on local advertising. Lots of websites survive exclusively on advertising, and to make it local merely requires targeted ads based on location -- which is clearly a known science.
That is what the problem is, even on the national and international level. Yes, an online newspaper could survive on local advertising as long as others couldn't link to the articles and bypass the ads, which is what is happening.
Besides, I don't understand all the fuss. If people value, say the Times, they won't mind paying for it. If the price is too high, they won't pay for it. Isn't that how a free market works?
i am surprised that advertisers haven't gotten the fact that just because you put an ad in a paper you can assuredly say that that person will buy from you or whatever,. most people have tuned out ads completely. the same goes for tv advertising. how can you charge someone for ads when you cant give them hard numbers on exactly how many people are looking or viewing ads.
I think most businesses would disagree with your hypothesis as they have studies to show the impact on the bottom line of various advertising campaigns. There is a lot of statistics to support what advertisers are doing. It might not be true science like chemistry or physics, but it is valid.
Terrible idea.. If I click a link on say, Google news, I want to read the actual story not have to go find it again. I just don't have the patience to do that so I end up just reading about it on some other news site instead. Smart online papers put ads for other interesting news around the story.
Then Google News should pay a fee to the site providing the story, just like your local paper pays to the AP or other wire service. I don't understand why people think that everything on the internet should be free. If somebody is providing content, whether in paper format or electronic, why should they not be renumerated for their efforts? Granted, the distribution costs of electronic content is less than paper, so the cost charge should be less, but really, there are only three ways for a business to provide content: charge a subscrition, sell advertising or have a government subsidy. Okay a fourth way would be some combination of those three.
If people value the content they are consuming, then they should be willing to pay for it, just like in the days before the internet.
Gates was just an example. The fact is that most CEOs prior to the 1970s rose through the ranks of business and were not college educated (only 20% of the population went to college).It still occurs today, but usually with family businesses that end up going public.
Even for those who did go to college, it was different than it is today. Today, the emphasis is on job skills in whatever field. Previously, it was on liberal arts and philosophy, at least on the undergraduate level. Even degrees in chemistry or physics included significant amounts or literature and classical studies. College is where one went to become an intellectual, not to get job skills.
College was sold to the masses by pointing out the earnings potential of a college graduate vs a non-college graduate over their lifetime. That was great marketing as it played into our sense of greed, but it also changed the purpose of college to become an expensive vocations school instead of its previous role of producing great thinkers, at least at the public universities. The private, elite schools, still kept their original plan, for the most part.
What the marketing left out, is that yes, you do end up earning more in your lifetime with a college degree, however, most of that difference is used to pay off the debt accumulated to earn that degree so in the end, the difference is not as great as it first appears.
Recent studies have shown, that given the low job prospects for college graduates, many of the current generation are returning to starting their own businesses (something the Gen Xers did not do). Many are also going into the service industries - mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, etc. Why? Because, all of the baby boomers who filled all of those slots are retiring and there is a large projected shortfall. A number of demographic studies predict the workforce by 2025 will look much like it did in 1965 - small businesses will proliferate and skilled and semi-skilled workers will dominate.
The question will be whether or not the education system will return to its roots or will continue to turn out graduates for a workforce that won't have a place for them?
There was a time, not too long ago, that anybody who graduated high school had all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually do almost any job, even start and run their own business, like Microsoft.
Well, Gates dropped out of college, so he did have some college education.
Plus, do you actually think that Gates or other people who have started businesses without a (completed) college education DID NOT LEARN TONS OF STUFF THEMSELVES?
I think you are implying that people had "all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually do almost any job" directly FROM their high school education.
No, I am implying just the opposity - that they learned it from somewhere else, most often by moving up the ranks in a business itself.
They pay *regular* dividends. They did not announce a *special* dividend to get around the upcoming tax increases that will go into effect on Jan 1. When did they promise to do so?
If they were concerned about the potential tax increases come January 1, they would have issued the dividends prior to that date so the shareholders would have been taxed at the lower rate.
I have no clue as to why Apple would or would not announce a special dividend, but I do know that not announcing one has nothing to do with the expected tax increases.
Even if so it still keeps more of the revenue in the US, less trade deficit.
Plus where are those robots made, maybe they are US made?
No, if the company is owned by Foxconn then the revenues leave the US. Unless all iP*d manufacturing moved here, it won't have much of a measurable impact on the trade deficit and no, most assembly line robots are not manufactured in the US, either.
Other unskilled jobs include janitorial, housekeeping, etc. These are unskilled because anyone who graduates high school has all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually perform them, and they pay low because well, anyone who walks off the street can do it.
There was a time, not too long ago, that anybody who graduated high school had all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually do almost any job, even start and run their own business, like Microsoft.
Back in the day, most business leaders, even , weren't college educated, but instead rose through the ranks to get to their position (with the exception of maybe medicine and engineering). Today, you spend $100,000 to get a degree so you can work in an entry level position. A generation or two ago, you just graduated high school for the entry level position and somebody with a college degree want into a junior management or mid-level position.
Face. it, most work fits in the category of being unskilled and monotonous. We just don't like to think about it wheny it applies to our own field.
1. Manufacturing in the USA, with manufacturing using robots, creating low thousands of well-paid jobs for Americans.
2. Manufacturing in China using hundreds of thousands of low-paid Chinese jobs.
3. Manufacturing in the USA without robots, but with hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage part-time jobs--and all Apple products increase in price by 30%.
Apple is currently doing #2 and transitioning to #1. Are you really upset that they didn't pick #3?
Your choices all have the same outcome. It is not the number of american jobs that is important to the economy, it is the number of american jobs that provide a livable wage.
In a robotic plant, most of the workers are the ones who box things up at the end of the process. Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma, if that. How is that a well paying job?
Unless Apple intends to pay a livable wage to its employees at these plant(s), which would mean either a significant price hike in products or a reduction in profits, all they are doing is pandering to the populus notion of buy American.
except that Unity presents the user with the same ilk of garbage UI that windows 8 has. Follow the leader as they auger into the ground.....
Actually, that is not true. Real world studies show that Windows users don't have too difficult of a time with Unity. The "lens" button needs to be more prevalent and it would be better if the menus didn't disappear but overall, the interface is fairly useable for the average desktop user (which may not mean the average linux user). Windows 8, on the other hand does not test so well.
I'd argue that republican vs democrat is missing the underlying cause. The parties aren't conspiring to erode our privacy or liberties. The voters have indicated they're willing to trade those away for a sense of security. The parties are selling the voters what they want.
Stupid voters...
I'm pretty sure that if there were a poll asking the the public or even just the subset who voted in the last election as to whether or not they thought the government should be free to read their emails and online files as described in the original post, the answer would be a resounding "No!" So, don't say the voters are willing to trade away their liberties for a sense of security. The only way that statement could be true is if the voters had a say in the matter.
You need to take your medicine. Clearly it wore off.
This is the next generation in fertility treatments, not some way to eliminate the female sex.
This isn't about fertility treatments. IVF is about fertility treatments. Granted some woman cannot carry a pregnancy to term, but in those cases there are surrogates. This is about freeing woman from the so called bondage of having to be pregnant at all.
While I empathize with you and your wife's situation, your child does not have to be an only child because adoption exists and if you insist on a biological sibling, there is IFV with a surrogate that would be 10s of thousands of dollars less expensive than this if it is ever commercially available. The only thing this replaces is the need for a surrogate, the rest of the process is the same and available today.
While he could have been a little more diplomatic and helpful, I don't see anything inherently wrong with his strategy.
The fallacy with all of the survivor type groups is that they plan on surviving for a period of time. Maybe months, maybe even a few years. In a post apocalyptic world, the plan needs to be able to survive indefinitely. Just as early societies found out, that is easier to do in community than all alone.
Why is that a fallacy rather than good enough? The point of surviving for a set period of time is so that you have a time cushion to adapt to whatever just happened. You can't store an infinite amount of food forever anyway. So I just don't see the fallacy.
Because after an apocalypse, there is no set period of time before things return to normal or near normal. By definition, they won't for generations, if at all. Preparing for an earthquake, or hurricane is for a relatively short duration because it is regional. But, something that pretty much wipes out civilization means you have to rebuild it. The survivorists may be able to do that, particularly by taking from others, for a time, but history has shown, for civilization to occur requires community which is the opposite of what the OP proposed.
Really. While these folks are struggling re inventing technology, I'm gonna grab the D4 sitting in the rental store yard, trundle over to a diesel tank, steal that and drag the whole thing down the road to my house. All the while taking potshots at people who are similarly inclined with my semi automatic rifle and the 10,000 rounds of ammo I found in the neighbor's house.
Then I'm gonna head down to these guys and steal their chickens.
Come on. If the apocalypse happens there is going to be so much techno crap strewn over the landscape that you will want to bury it at some point. Once you have stabilized your situation with appropriate amounts of defensive gear, food, water and communications you will have a treasure trove of stuff to pick from once the buzzards pick the bodies clean.
In the mean while, I'm going to sleep on a nice bed and take regular showers. Easier to get laid that way.
Of course, somebody else, with more ammo than you may be looking at your stash thinking they will take it. Even if you "win" eventually, you will have no diesal fuel and no ammo (let alone running water or anything else). Do you really think the survivors from the camp where you took everything, assuming they are still alive are going to graciously let you in?
The fallacy with all of the survivor type groups is that they plan on surviving for a period of time. Maybe months, maybe even a few years. In a post apocalyptic world, the plan needs to be able to survive indefinitely. Just as early societies found out, that is easier to do in community than all alone.
Does WP7 infringe? I don't know. I do know that you can't just claim that something infringes, you have to build a case and show it and that takes time. It is likely that process started with WP7 and included the W8 previews, but wasn't finalized until recenently. If you look at the recently failed Oracle court cased, there is a lot of data that the defender of their IP has to have together (right or wrong) to show they were infringed. It is not enough to say it looks like what we patented. You have to show how it infringes and the more case of infringement, the more likely you will prevail.
It is possible that WP7 did not infringe, but that is unlikely. More likely is that it takes time to determine all the infringing parts and to build a case and get it filed. Then, by the time that was done, Windows 8 was being released and the two were combined into one complaint.
Slashdot Mirror
Kubuntu is a fine KDE distro that gives you the advantages of Ubuntu's infrastructure and repositories without all of their shenanigans.
The problem isn't corporate involvement. The problem is when corporate involvement leads down the path we're seeing Canonical take with Ubuntu, where they start shoving ads in your face.
It fundamentally disrespects the user as it becomes apparent that you've given up on making them the customer and decided to sell them like livestock. It's why Facebook is so reviled on Slashdot, and why I can't stand most handset manufacturers (they build for the carriers and not the people who actually use the devices.)
But then don't use Ubuntu. One things corporations respond to is user base. If Canonicals actions with Ubuntu displease users so they quit using Ubuntu, then Canonical will change what it is doing. As long as Canonical maintains its user base, however, things will keep on going the way they are.
In linux, free as in beer also means that you are free to use whatever distribution you want.
Does that work if you want to remove your content from Google News or just the regular Google search engine? It seems that scans of news media occurs much more frequently than regular sites.
What do you mean that Google doesn't serve anything? Sites don't forward information to Google. Google goes out and harvests it, then when you do a search they display it.
Companies have specifically asked to be delisted from the search engine and Google has said no.
When newspapers stop printing and delivering physical newspapers, most if not all union workers will be out of work. I don't think the unions will allow that, preferring (as with Hostess) that the company go out of business rather than switch to a model that excludes them.
The bakers at Hostess are scapegoats, they didn't want the company to go out of business. They were set up for this role by being ask to take huge concessions that for many of them would have put their net pay below minimum wage.
What did Hostess in was not the bakers. There are 20% fewer children in the US today than in the 1960s. That is the primary market for their products. In addition, with all the stuff about trans-fats and the like, sales of their key products have been in decline (just like kryspy cream doughnuts).
All during this time, management could have been making strategic changes with their product line but they chose not to do so. It's not the unions that killed Hostess, it was the management.
It's all too easy to blame the union workers for the blight of business, but it is the management of business that makes the decisions that sink it, not the workers.
Personally, I don't value online newspapers for the same reason I stopped buying physical papers. I don't see the point in paying someone else to filter the news of the world through a particular agenda. I would rather have access to the raw feed (if available) and make my own decisions about what's important to me.
You realize that such use is fleeting. More and more sites will go to a pay wall system, particularly as their paper versions can no longer foot the bill for providing free on line access. These companies do need to make pay bills.
So, unless by raw feed you mean anonymous people posting twitter and you tube videos, you won't even have that. Then again, by what means do you have to assess that the person(s) posting such content on their own doesn't have their own agenda?
I don't pay for a news service to filter the news for me (although I undrestand that Google filters my search results based on previous searches). I pay for a news service to condense all of the news so that I can zero in on the things that I find pertinent.
They are talking about Google News, not Google Search. There is a difference. Google News is like the newspaper sitting at the newstand, you are free to look at the headlines, but you aren't free to pick it up and start reading it, at least that is the argument being made.
WallStreet Journal is a good example. You can find an article in the WSJ on Google, however, going to the link only gets you the summary on the WSJ, you need to subscribe to get the full article. Same with a lot of publications. What Google is doing, though, is snatching the articles behind the paywalls and serving them up.
All the content providers are saying is that if they charge the public for full access, Google (and others) can't serve it up free.
One would think that an online only newspaper could still survive on local advertising. Lots of websites survive exclusively on advertising, and to make it local merely requires targeted ads based on location -- which is clearly a known science.
That is what the problem is, even on the national and international level. Yes, an online newspaper could survive on local advertising as long as others couldn't link to the articles and bypass the ads, which is what is happening.
Besides, I don't understand all the fuss. If people value, say the Times, they won't mind paying for it. If the price is too high, they won't pay for it. Isn't that how a free market works?
i am surprised that advertisers haven't gotten the fact that just because you put an ad in a paper you can assuredly say that that person will buy from you or whatever,. most people have tuned out ads completely. the same goes for tv advertising. how can you charge someone for ads when you cant give them hard numbers on exactly how many people are looking or viewing ads.
I think most businesses would disagree with your hypothesis as they have studies to show the impact on the bottom line of various advertising campaigns. There is a lot of statistics to support what advertisers are doing. It might not be true science like chemistry or physics, but it is valid.
Terrible idea.. If I click a link on say, Google news, I want to read the actual story not have to go find it again. I just don't have the patience to do that so I end up just reading about it on some other news site instead. Smart online papers put ads for other interesting news around the story.
Then Google News should pay a fee to the site providing the story, just like your local paper pays to the AP or other wire service. I don't understand why people think that everything on the internet should be free. If somebody is providing content, whether in paper format or electronic, why should they not be renumerated for their efforts? Granted, the distribution costs of electronic content is less than paper, so the cost charge should be less, but really, there are only three ways for a business to provide content: charge a subscrition, sell advertising or have a government subsidy. Okay a fourth way would be some combination of those three.
If people value the content they are consuming, then they should be willing to pay for it, just like in the days before the internet.
Gates was just an example. The fact is that most CEOs prior to the 1970s rose through the ranks of business and were not college educated (only 20% of the population went to college).It still occurs today, but usually with family businesses that end up going public.
Even for those who did go to college, it was different than it is today. Today, the emphasis is on job skills in whatever field. Previously, it was on liberal arts and philosophy, at least on the undergraduate level. Even degrees in chemistry or physics included significant amounts or literature and classical studies. College is where one went to become an intellectual, not to get job skills.
College was sold to the masses by pointing out the earnings potential of a college graduate vs a non-college graduate over their lifetime. That was great marketing as it played into our sense of greed, but it also changed the purpose of college to become an expensive vocations school instead of its previous role of producing great thinkers, at least at the public universities. The private, elite schools, still kept their original plan, for the most part.
What the marketing left out, is that yes, you do end up earning more in your lifetime with a college degree, however, most of that difference is used to pay off the debt accumulated to earn that degree so in the end, the difference is not as great as it first appears.
Recent studies have shown, that given the low job prospects for college graduates, many of the current generation are returning to starting their own businesses (something the Gen Xers did not do). Many are also going into the service industries - mechanics, plumbing, carpentry, etc. Why? Because, all of the baby boomers who filled all of those slots are retiring and there is a large projected shortfall. A number of demographic studies predict the workforce by 2025 will look much like it did in 1965 - small businesses will proliferate and skilled and semi-skilled workers will dominate.
The question will be whether or not the education system will return to its roots or will continue to turn out graduates for a workforce that won't have a place for them?
Well, Gates dropped out of college, so he did have some college education.
Plus, do you actually think that Gates or other people who have started businesses without a (completed) college education DID NOT LEARN TONS OF STUFF THEMSELVES?
I think you are implying that people had "all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually do almost any job" directly FROM their high school education.
No, I am implying just the opposity - that they learned it from somewhere else, most often by moving up the ranks in a business itself.
They didn't pay a dividend as promised ...
They pay *regular* dividends. They did not announce a *special* dividend to get around the upcoming tax increases that will go into effect on Jan 1. When did they promise to do so?
If they were concerned about the potential tax increases come January 1, they would have issued the dividends prior to that date so the shareholders would have been taxed at the lower rate.
I have no clue as to why Apple would or would not announce a special dividend, but I do know that not announcing one has nothing to do with the expected tax increases.
Assembly jobs, just robot repair and janitors.
Even if so it still keeps more of the revenue in the US, less trade deficit.
Plus where are those robots made, maybe they are US made?
No, if the company is owned by Foxconn then the revenues leave the US. Unless all iP*d manufacturing moved here, it won't have much of a measurable impact on the trade deficit and no, most assembly line robots are not manufactured in the US, either.
Other unskilled jobs include janitorial, housekeeping, etc. These are unskilled because anyone who graduates high school has all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually perform them, and they pay low because well, anyone who walks off the street can do it.
There was a time, not too long ago, that anybody who graduated high school had all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually do almost any job, even start and run their own business, like Microsoft.
Back in the day, most business leaders, even , weren't college educated, but instead rose through the ranks to get to their position (with the exception of maybe medicine and engineering). Today, you spend $100,000 to get a degree so you can work in an entry level position. A generation or two ago, you just graduated high school for the entry level position and somebody with a college degree want into a junior management or mid-level position.
Face. it, most work fits in the category of being unskilled and monotonous. We just don't like to think about it wheny it applies to our own field.
Here are your options:
1. Manufacturing in the USA, with manufacturing using robots, creating low thousands of well-paid jobs for Americans.
2. Manufacturing in China using hundreds of thousands of low-paid Chinese jobs.
3. Manufacturing in the USA without robots, but with hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage part-time jobs--and all Apple products increase in price by 30%.
Apple is currently doing #2 and transitioning to #1. Are you really upset that they didn't pick #3?
Your choices all have the same outcome. It is not the number of american jobs that is important to the economy, it is the number of american jobs that provide a livable wage.
In a robotic plant, most of the workers are the ones who box things up at the end of the process. Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma, if that. How is that a well paying job?
Unless Apple intends to pay a livable wage to its employees at these plant(s), which would mean either a significant price hike in products or a reduction in profits, all they are doing is pandering to the populus notion of buy American.
except that Unity presents the user with the same ilk of garbage UI that windows 8 has. Follow the leader as they auger into the ground.....
Actually, that is not true. Real world studies show that Windows users don't have too difficult of a time with Unity. The "lens" button needs to be more prevalent and it would be better if the menus didn't disappear but overall, the interface is fairly useable for the average desktop user (which may not mean the average linux user). Windows 8, on the other hand does not test so well.
I'd argue that republican vs democrat is missing the underlying cause. The parties aren't conspiring to erode our privacy or liberties. The voters have indicated they're willing to trade those away for a sense of security. The parties are selling the voters what they want.
Stupid voters...
I'm pretty sure that if there were a poll asking the the public or even just the subset who voted in the last election as to whether or not they thought the government should be free to read their emails and online files as described in the original post, the answer would be a resounding "No!" So, don't say the voters are willing to trade away their liberties for a sense of security. The only way that statement could be true is if the voters had a say in the matter.
You need to take your medicine. Clearly it wore off.
This is the next generation in fertility treatments, not some way to eliminate the female sex.
This isn't about fertility treatments. IVF is about fertility treatments. Granted some woman cannot carry a pregnancy to term, but in those cases there are surrogates. This is about freeing woman from the so called bondage of having to be pregnant at all.
While I empathize with you and your wife's situation, your child does not have to be an only child because adoption exists and if you insist on a biological sibling, there is IFV with a surrogate that would be 10s of thousands of dollars less expensive than this if it is ever commercially available. The only thing this replaces is the need for a surrogate, the rest of the process is the same and available today.
While he could have been a little more diplomatic and helpful, I don't see anything inherently wrong with his strategy.
The fallacy with all of the survivor type groups is that they plan on surviving for a period of time. Maybe months, maybe even a few years. In a post apocalyptic world, the plan needs to be able to survive indefinitely. Just as early societies found out, that is easier to do in community than all alone.
Why is that a fallacy rather than good enough? The point of surviving for a set period of time is so that you have a time cushion to adapt to whatever just happened. You can't store an infinite amount of food forever anyway. So I just don't see the fallacy.
Because after an apocalypse, there is no set period of time before things return to normal or near normal. By definition, they won't for generations, if at all. Preparing for an earthquake, or hurricane is for a relatively short duration because it is regional. But, something that pretty much wipes out civilization means you have to rebuild it. The survivorists may be able to do that, particularly by taking from others, for a time, but history has shown, for civilization to occur requires community which is the opposite of what the OP proposed.
Really. While these folks are struggling re inventing technology, I'm gonna grab the D4 sitting in the rental store yard, trundle over to a diesel tank, steal that and drag the whole thing down the road to my house. All the while taking potshots at people who are similarly inclined with my semi automatic rifle and the 10,000 rounds of ammo I found in the neighbor's house.
Then I'm gonna head down to these guys and steal their chickens.
Come on. If the apocalypse happens there is going to be so much techno crap strewn over the landscape that you will want to bury it at some point. Once you have stabilized your situation with appropriate amounts of defensive gear, food, water and communications you will have a treasure trove of stuff to pick from once the buzzards pick the bodies clean.
In the mean while, I'm going to sleep on a nice bed and take regular showers. Easier to get laid that way.
Of course, somebody else, with more ammo than you may be looking at your stash thinking they will take it. Even if you "win" eventually, you will have no diesal fuel and no ammo (let alone running water or anything else). Do you really think the survivors from the camp where you took everything, assuming they are still alive are going to graciously let you in?
The fallacy with all of the survivor type groups is that they plan on surviving for a period of time. Maybe months, maybe even a few years. In a post apocalyptic world, the plan needs to be able to survive indefinitely. Just as early societies found out, that is easier to do in community than all alone.
Does WP7 infringe? I don't know. I do know that you can't just claim that something infringes, you have to build a case and show it and that takes time. It is likely that process started with WP7 and included the W8 previews, but wasn't finalized until recenently. If you look at the recently failed Oracle court cased, there is a lot of data that the defender of their IP has to have together (right or wrong) to show they were infringed. It is not enough to say it looks like what we patented. You have to show how it infringes and the more case of infringement, the more likely you will prevail.
It is possible that WP7 did not infringe, but that is unlikely. More likely is that it takes time to determine all the infringing parts and to build a case and get it filed. Then, by the time that was done, Windows 8 was being released and the two were combined into one complaint.
Windows 8 is the infringing product and was just released.