While I understand what the judge is saying this ruling is a two edge sword. Basically, there is now precedent that anything on a computer that is connected to P2P gives up privacy. Could the government use a bot to get your tax records or medical records? According to this information, yes. What about another individual, yes, they could too because you effectively made it public by connecting to a P2P network.
Now, how about all of those sites with nude photos of ex girlfriends? Evidently, if while dating and she sent you the picture and your computer was connected to a P2P network, well, those pictures are public, too, at least under this ruling.
Think of a house. Just because the house has windows viewable by the public doesn't mean the public has the right to peer into your house to watch you prance around naked. Why then does a computer which also has the equivalent of a window to the outside world not afford the same protection? Just like there is a difference between a standing naked in front of the window and a peeping tom, there is a difference between being connected to a P2P network and sharing files you choose to share versus being connected to a P2P network and somebody running a bot against you.
It's commendable to try and stop child pornographers. Out of curiosity, if they already suspected the guy, how much more difficult would it have been to get a search warrant to ensure it was a legal search in the first place?
The system relies on microorganisms (bacteria) in the pump to convert the proteins (organic matter) in the urine) into a fuel source for the fuel cells. I wonder what will happen when the urine from somebody taking antibiotics enters the "system" and disrupts the bacterial balance being used? Or, for that matter, urine containing any number of disease elements?
Of course, once can engineer the bacteria to not be impacted by such things. But then that changes the question to I wonder what will happen when this super bacteria gets out in the wild?
It's not rocket science to build a clean-burning wood stove. The first manufacturer to come up with an inexpensive solution will be rewarded with lots of revenue.
Of course, if nobody can afford to purchase one...
Why should anybody believe a quote about the damage that the Snowden leaks may cause when they are attributed to an "anonymous reader?" It would seem that just about anybody wanting to discredit Snowden or any government's propaganda machine could say whatever they wanted anonymously.
If somebody is really in the know in the UK about the damage Snowden's leaks have caused or may cause related to child porn and terrorists, then they should say so on the record. Otherwise, this is a credible as big foot sightings.
This would give chess the same clear and predictable yardstick for greatness that golf and tennis have instead of the extremely crude world champion benchmark.
Except that golf and tennis are actual sports, while chess is not. Golf and tennis are followed by 100s of millions of people, while chess is not. Now if you want to destroy the tradition and intellectual pursuit known as chess and turn it into something that can be monetized, go ahead. Years ago, they did that to wrestling, so who knows, 25 years from now, we might all be watching All Star Chess on television.
I only brought up the damn 2038 thing as an aside. For crying out loud the comment about it was in parenthesis. Sheesh...
I have been talking about DST, and the DST change, and what it takes for a software firm to deal with it, and why each firm has to deal with it even if for the most part they get their DST information from patches from systems software vendors. And my primary damn point, which is that when companies have to test and track their software to systems software updates that do (or don't) correctly give them the DST information they need for the timezones they care about, that is money spent, and when the government arbitrarily changed it because they have no idea how much work it really took for people like me to figure out what the impacts of it will be on our systems, that was money wasted.
DST and TZ data is closely interrelated - when we changed, others didn't.
I know what the hell I've been talking about here, thank you.
I really do appreciate the problem you and others face when the government arbitrarily changes the parameters of DST, but in reality, that isn't a DST problem but a problem with government implementing a policy without examining the consequences. Even without DST, though, and to your primary point, companies will still have to test and track their software to systems software updates -- that's going to happen because of the need to work in various timezones, again, not directly related to DST. What DST does is complicate that testing by making time vary for a given timezone. But unless the world wants to get rid of timezones altogether, something unlikely to happen, the problem will remain, even if everybody got rid of DST.
you have absolutely utterly failed to see the point. you have absolutely no idea - i was talking ABSOLUTELY about macro-econ, not micro. at the micro-econ level, it is just money spent.
at the macro-econ level, it is money spent that *provided no value*. Everybody was $5 billion less than they had before, but the products were, in effect, merely the same as they were before all this effort. Nothing was gained. Intellectual and economic power was wasted.
there is a difference, regardless of if you care to see it or not (so far, you don't).
If at the macro level the products were merely the same as they were before the effort and nothing was gained, then nothing was lost. Ergo, there couldn't be a $5B loss. The only way there can be a loss is if DST causes there to be less economic value than before. It doesn't do that on a macro level. It only does it on a micro level. On a macro level at worst, it transfers economic value from one group to another, such as business to employee. But that isn't an economic loss.
So, if you really were talking about macro-econ, which cannot generate an economic loss because of DST, where does the $5B loss come from in the point you were trying to make?
Oh, and as for whiz-bang DST / TZ libraries? They should try doing all this on a client-side html5 app where all you have is raw javascript that has access to none of that. Yes, we do actually have situations where we need to code to this stuff straight out because whiz-bang DST/TZ library doesn't exist for our platform. date.js is good, but isn't perfect (like the regular javascript Date, it sucks trying to deal with timezones outside of what the browser thinks it is in) and hasn't been updated for useful stuff like this since it came out almost 10 years ago. node.js servers can make system-level calls for some of this, but a browser has no such benefit.
Might be that client-side html5 isn't the optimum platform for what you are trying to do, then. Again, that would be a design decision and if you are having to hack code because of poor design, that is not really the fault of DST.
Actually, I get it very well. I've worked on software that literally has zero tolerance for errors. While usually cost prohibitive, in certain situations the consequences are far greater. That said, all of the "problems" you mention are design problems. If designed in house or custom, then the design is flawed. If purchased off the shelf, you do have a point, but unless you rely on the vendor for testing instead of your own, you should already know the answers to those questions.
As for every last system getting a new copy of the public domain database, I sure hope not, what a waste of bandwidth. Hopefully, your devices all get their time from a local time server which gets its time from outside. I'm not sure why you are down on the tz database, you can hit it yourself, or hit the government servers instead, or hit your own in house table, your choice, but ultimately, you don't need to code your own table in every application.
Again, one would hope that mission critical system and systems related to security and public safety, including elevators, are tested not only by the vendor but the company purchasing them.
It's not the twice a year change that costs $5B, it's updating all the software if we change when (or if) DST happens that costs billions.
I'd get new programmers. There are public domain databases that have all of the time zone data including DST. If your system isn't reading those for its data, then something is really wrong. Even if, for some reason, you need to maintain your own code, surely you aren't reprogramming everything twice a year and rely on an internal table to tell the system that the time has change. In reality, the most likely scenario is that you are reading the system time, which is set from the network server, which hopefully accesses a public ntp server for its time info. So, if it costs you anything, it's because of poor design, not DST.
The point is that from the perspective of the company having to pay members of their IT department to work on the DST change, that money was going into an effort that would not, directly, lead to increased sales, increased profits, or increased interest from a marketing standpoint.
That is only true on a micro level. On the macro level, those extra wages are used to purchase goods and services so any economic loss experienced by that company is made up for by other companies or the individual themself. The other issue is whether or not extra money was actually spent. If the IT workers are salaried, they are going to draw that salary come DST or not. So, unless there is a significant amount of work devoted to DST, chances are, the lost time would be picked up in slack time in any projects versus taking on new tasks.
I have no doubt that for any particular company DST can cause more expenses. Likewise, for any particular company DST can cause increased revenues. However, the question is whether or not the decreases exceed the increases and most major economists agree that there is a slight benefit to DST and actually propose DST year round.
>These studies do aggree, however, that retailers prefer DST because it brings in more customers, traffic safety is improved because of more light for evening commutes
The improvement in evening traffic safety is offset by a corresponding decrease in morning traffic safety. Most of the safety studies that I have seen suggest that morning commutes are inherently more dangerous than evening commutes, probably because people are not fully awake. If this is the case, and safety is the primary reason for DST, then it would be better to have the daylight before work than after.
Actually, because morning commutes are statistically more dangerous than evening commutes, the impact of DST actually has less of a statistical impact on them than it does the evening commute. Put differently, the accident rate decreases more significantly for evening drivers than it increases for morning drivers.
The disruption is all in IT. Computers don't just magically know what time it is. They have a chip that tells them the number of microseconds since some arbitrary date (happens to be Jan 1, 1970, which means a 32bit int is gonna run out sometime around 2038 - the next "y2k" problem).
2038 has nothing to do with DST, nor do computers rely on hardcoded DST information any more. Most modern computers set their clocks from a network which sets its clock from another network or source. As for DST, that is mainly handled through a database query upstream. For instance, when you wake up in the morning on Sunday, assuming you are in the US, your cell phone will show the correct time. It doesn't have some chip embedded in it saying when DST begins or ends like days gone by. It gets its time signal from the cell tower which gets it from your carrier's time source.
While 2038 may be a problem for personal computers it is unrelated to the economic impact of changing the clocks because of DST.
The broken window fallacy doesn't apply in this case. Here, the premise is there is a direct cost associated with the change in DST, at least in the way the OP presented it. If there is a direct cost, either more wages are paid or more supplies are used or more fuel or more of any other resource, then somebody on the other side of that transaction, whether an employee a supplier or some other manufacturer has had an increase in their economic position. Once company cannot spend more money without somebody else receiving more money. That is why I differentiated between simple $5B in additional costs and lost economic activity. Lost economic activity definitely does fall under the broken window fallacy.
It should also be noted that the broken window fallacy is not universally accepted and often hotly contested among economists (just look at the debate over cash for clunkers the US did during the recession).
Current estimates is that the DST change of 2005 cost the economy $5 billion in expenses *just to keep working at all* - that's 5 billion that wasn't spent on improvements, or new features, or anything actually giving new value to their customers. It simply ceased to exist, for the illusion of savings in other markets (energy and retail) that never materialized.
If it cost $5B in expenses, that means somebody enjoyed $5B in revenues. OTOH, if it cost business $5B in lossed economic activity, that would be a drain on the economy. Almost all studies tied to the cost/benefit of DST are contradictory because there are so many variables and methodologies involved.
These studies do aggree, however, that retailers prefer DST because it brings in more customers, traffic safety is improved because of more light for evening commutes and people tend to be more active outside than they would have been without it (leading to health benefits). So, while corporate America might not like it, consumer America, evidently does. And it is consumerism that ultimately driving the economy.
BTW, if the time shifts are causing so much disruption for big business, there's nothing to say they have to keep the same work schedule. They could just as easily change their start and stop times to coincide with the change to/from DST. You would think if it would save them $5B, they would jump at that. Chances are, they know the changeover doesn't cost them that much and that is why they don't.
Well, if you are going to go as far as the Shrager suggests, then why not just eliminate all time zones. Let people on the West Coast get up and go to work at noon and go home at 8pm? Or you could go the otherway and people in New York get up and go to work at 6am and go home at 2pm but using the standard clock in CA. Or, you could pick the midwest as the middle and let both costs, were the majority of people live either go to work and school in the dark or come home that way.
If you don't like Daylight Saving Time, fine lobby to abolish it or to make it permanent. That is a totally different case than eliminating time zones.
I think you are overcomplicating it. Look at how many millions, if not billions of spreadsheets that are in use to solve various problems. Each of those hard coded formulas in Excel are basically a black box with predefined inputs and outputs. What is lacking are the black boxes to control logic flow. But really, that would not be difficult at all.
The biggest challenge is that such a model, when you get past the terminology, creates structured code versus today's paradigm of OOP. Obviously the predefined components are objects, but they don't have inheritance, and all of the other properties we take for granted now a days. Code generated this way could actually be fairly robust, but couldn't be inherited either so like in the old days, a lot of duplicate work would be involved for similar systems.
From an end user perspective, though, that probably isn't an issue. Again, look at all of those spreadsheets, many of them quite sophisticated and used in ways that were never intended by the developers of Excel. Would a professional programmer use such a tool? Probably not, but then such a tool isn't actually designed for them.
A much more basic and simpler and safer solution would be to just not wear the headset while driving.
Except that then you couldn't use it for navigation.
That is true, you would have to rely on the built in navigation system of the vehicle or a regular gps, if you were wanting not to break the law in those states that prohibit something like Google Glass.
Both of which increase the danger of distracted driving, by requiring you to move your eyes and shift your focus farther in order to see the display.
There are no studies that show that using the in-dash navigation system or a stand alone GPS system increase the danger of distracted driving compared to using Google Glass. And while it is true, that you have to move your eyes and change your focus to see the gps device, it is also true you have to move your eyes and change your focus, even for Google Glass. The same is true for these HUDs that are appearing on high end cars. But to date, there is only conjecture that one method is safer than the others, not real, verifiable data.
A much more basic and simpler and safer solution would be to just not wear the headset while driving.
Except that then you couldn't use it for navigation.
That is true, you would have to rely on the built in navigation system of the vehicle or a regular gps, if you were wanting not to break the law in those states that prohibit something like Google Glass.
A software tweak to Glass could easily allow it to satisfy the requirements of that law. Basically, just disable anything other than navigation when in a vehicle (perhaps detected by proximity to the vehicle bluetooth) and when the vehicle is moving.
That would be a solution, assuming bluetooth is on, or it could use the gps in the headset to monitor the location and speed and calculate that you are in a moving vehicle. There was a similar discussion a few weeks ago about something like this for cell phones to keep drivers from using them. Of course either of those solutions would mean that your passengers would lose the ability to use theirs, too.
A much more basic and simpler and safer solution would be to just not wear the headset while driving.
More specifically it is about prohibiting drivers from operating a vehicle with a television broadcast or video signal in view in front of them. With regards to the television broadcast, Google Glass would not be considered a violation. However, the video signal is being displayed literally right in front of the driver's eye, so that is the part that the law that is being violated. California is not alone with this statute and other states have amended theirs specifically to include devices like Google Glass to remove any ambiguity. Specifically exempted by the CA law are displays related to the operation of the vehicle and gps devices. Here is the actual law: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc27602.htm
Wow, way to go off on a completely unrelated -- and ridiculous! -- tangent. Or did you just completely miss the point that the law violated by wearing Glass appears to be equally violated by the screen in a Prius?
The law is specifically about computer displays in front of the driver. , the inboard display on the Prius isn't a computer, so, no, it doesn't violate the law in CA or the other state. The fact that it could be used as one in a different context doesn't matter. As it is in the car, it is not because the Prius is not a computer. That's the point. Likewise, a GPS isn't a computer under the LAW either. However, Google Glass is a computer and therefore, the display sitting right in front of your eye, violates the law. CA isn't the only state that has and enforces this type of law and others are actually passing legislation specifically aimed at Google Glass to remove any confusion.
If you can't see the difference between a Prius (and similar cars with on board displays) and Google Glass, you shouldn't be allowed to use either.
So, what you're saying is that you can't articulate the difference. Got it.
I have no need to articulate the difference, you are the one that seems confused. Simply put, though the Toyota Prius is a car you drive to get from point A to point B. My spouse drives one every day, so I am quite familiar with it, its capabilities and systems. As for the Google Glass, it is a wearable computer. I don't own one, and have only read about it.
A more accurate description of Google Glass is Google Glass is a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) that is being developed by Google in the Project Glass research and development project, with a mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format, that can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.
I'm not sure how somebody could confuse the two, but, maybe if you would articulate what is confusing you between them, somebody on slashdot could explain it for you.
Slashdot Mirror
While I understand what the judge is saying this ruling is a two edge sword. Basically, there is now precedent that anything on a computer that is connected to P2P gives up privacy. Could the government use a bot to get your tax records or medical records? According to this information, yes. What about another individual, yes, they could too because you effectively made it public by connecting to a P2P network.
Now, how about all of those sites with nude photos of ex girlfriends? Evidently, if while dating and she sent you the picture and your computer was connected to a P2P network, well, those pictures are public, too, at least under this ruling.
Think of a house. Just because the house has windows viewable by the public doesn't mean the public has the right to peer into your house to watch you prance around naked. Why then does a computer which also has the equivalent of a window to the outside world not afford the same protection? Just like there is a difference between a standing naked in front of the window and a peeping tom, there is a difference between being connected to a P2P network and sharing files you choose to share versus being connected to a P2P network and somebody running a bot against you.
It's commendable to try and stop child pornographers. Out of curiosity, if they already suspected the guy, how much more difficult would it have been to get a search warrant to ensure it was a legal search in the first place?
The system relies on microorganisms (bacteria) in the pump to convert the proteins (organic matter) in the urine) into a fuel source for the fuel cells. I wonder what will happen when the urine from somebody taking antibiotics enters the "system" and disrupts the bacterial balance being used? Or, for that matter, urine containing any number of disease elements?
Of course, once can engineer the bacteria to not be impacted by such things. But then that changes the question to I wonder what will happen when this super bacteria gets out in the wild?
It's not rocket science to build a clean-burning wood stove. The first manufacturer to come up with an inexpensive solution will be rewarded with lots of revenue.
Of course, if nobody can afford to purchase one...
I thought we were supposed to be promoting renewable energy sources. Wood seems to be one of those, does it not?
Why should anybody believe a quote about the damage that the Snowden leaks may cause when they are attributed to an "anonymous reader?" It would seem that just about anybody wanting to discredit Snowden or any government's propaganda machine could say whatever they wanted anonymously.
If somebody is really in the know in the UK about the damage Snowden's leaks have caused or may cause related to child porn and terrorists, then they should say so on the record. Otherwise, this is a credible as big foot sightings.
This would give chess the same clear and predictable yardstick for greatness that golf and tennis have instead of the extremely crude world champion benchmark.
Except that golf and tennis are actual sports, while chess is not. Golf and tennis are followed by 100s of millions of people, while chess is not. Now if you want to destroy the tradition and intellectual pursuit known as chess and turn it into something that can be monetized, go ahead. Years ago, they did that to wrestling, so who knows, 25 years from now, we might all be watching All Star Chess on television.
I only brought up the damn 2038 thing as an aside. For crying out loud the comment about it was in parenthesis. Sheesh...
I have been talking about DST, and the DST change, and what it takes for a software firm to deal with it, and why each firm has to deal with it even if for the most part they get their DST information from patches from systems software vendors. And my primary damn point, which is that when companies have to test and track their software to systems software updates that do (or don't) correctly give them the DST information they need for the timezones they care about, that is money spent, and when the government arbitrarily changed it because they have no idea how much work it really took for people like me to figure out what the impacts of it will be on our systems, that was money wasted.
DST and TZ data is closely interrelated - when we changed, others didn't.
I know what the hell I've been talking about here, thank you.
I really do appreciate the problem you and others face when the government arbitrarily changes the parameters of DST, but in reality, that isn't a DST problem but a problem with government implementing a policy without examining the consequences. Even without DST, though, and to your primary point, companies will still have to test and track their software to systems software updates -- that's going to happen because of the need to work in various timezones, again, not directly related to DST. What DST does is complicate that testing by making time vary for a given timezone. But unless the world wants to get rid of timezones altogether, something unlikely to happen, the problem will remain, even if everybody got rid of DST.
you have absolutely utterly failed to see the point. you have absolutely no idea - i was talking ABSOLUTELY about macro-econ, not micro. at the micro-econ level, it is just money spent.
at the macro-econ level, it is money spent that *provided no value*. Everybody was $5 billion less than they had before, but the products were, in effect, merely the same as they were before all this effort. Nothing was gained. Intellectual and economic power was wasted.
there is a difference, regardless of if you care to see it or not (so far, you don't).
If at the macro level the products were merely the same as they were before the effort and nothing was gained, then nothing was lost. Ergo, there couldn't be a $5B loss. The only way there can be a loss is if DST causes there to be less economic value than before. It doesn't do that on a macro level. It only does it on a micro level. On a macro level at worst, it transfers economic value from one group to another, such as business to employee. But that isn't an economic loss.
So, if you really were talking about macro-econ, which cannot generate an economic loss because of DST, where does the $5B loss come from in the point you were trying to make?
Oh, and as for whiz-bang DST / TZ libraries? They should try doing all this on a client-side html5 app where all you have is raw javascript that has access to none of that. Yes, we do actually have situations where we need to code to this stuff straight out because whiz-bang DST/TZ library doesn't exist for our platform. date.js is good, but isn't perfect (like the regular javascript Date, it sucks trying to deal with timezones outside of what the browser thinks it is in) and hasn't been updated for useful stuff like this since it came out almost 10 years ago. node.js servers can make system-level calls for some of this, but a browser has no such benefit.
Might be that client-side html5 isn't the optimum platform for what you are trying to do, then. Again, that would be a design decision and if you are having to hack code because of poor design, that is not really the fault of DST.
Actually, I get it very well. I've worked on software that literally has zero tolerance for errors. While usually cost prohibitive, in certain situations the consequences are far greater. That said, all of the "problems" you mention are design problems. If designed in house or custom, then the design is flawed. If purchased off the shelf, you do have a point, but unless you rely on the vendor for testing instead of your own, you should already know the answers to those questions.
As for every last system getting a new copy of the public domain database, I sure hope not, what a waste of bandwidth. Hopefully, your devices all get their time from a local time server which gets its time from outside. I'm not sure why you are down on the tz database, you can hit it yourself, or hit the government servers instead, or hit your own in house table, your choice, but ultimately, you don't need to code your own table in every application.
Again, one would hope that mission critical system and systems related to security and public safety, including elevators, are tested not only by the vendor but the company purchasing them.
It's not the twice a year change that costs $5B, it's updating all the software if we change when (or if) DST happens that costs billions.
I'd get new programmers. There are public domain databases that have all of the time zone data including DST. If your system isn't reading those for its data, then something is really wrong. Even if, for some reason, you need to maintain your own code, surely you aren't reprogramming everything twice a year and rely on an internal table to tell the system that the time has change. In reality, the most likely scenario is that you are reading the system time, which is set from the network server, which hopefully accesses a public ntp server for its time info. So, if it costs you anything, it's because of poor design, not DST.
The point is that from the perspective of the company having to pay members of their IT department to work on the DST change, that money was going into an effort that would not, directly, lead to increased sales, increased profits, or increased interest from a marketing standpoint.
That is only true on a micro level. On the macro level, those extra wages are used to purchase goods and services so any economic loss experienced by that company is made up for by other companies or the individual themself. The other issue is whether or not extra money was actually spent. If the IT workers are salaried, they are going to draw that salary come DST or not. So, unless there is a significant amount of work devoted to DST, chances are, the lost time would be picked up in slack time in any projects versus taking on new tasks.
I have no doubt that for any particular company DST can cause more expenses. Likewise, for any particular company DST can cause increased revenues. However, the question is whether or not the decreases exceed the increases and most major economists agree that there is a slight benefit to DST and actually propose DST year round.
Yes, your date issue is different than DST, however the thread was about DST, not the reliability of the tz database.
As for systems development, my first job was on an IBM 360, so I've been doing it probably from before you were born.
>These studies do aggree, however, that retailers prefer DST because it brings in more customers, traffic safety is improved because of more light for evening commutes
The improvement in evening traffic safety is offset by a corresponding decrease in morning traffic safety. Most of the safety studies that I have seen suggest that morning commutes are inherently more dangerous than evening commutes, probably because people are not fully awake. If this is the case, and safety is the primary reason for DST, then it would be better to have the daylight before work than after.
Actually, because morning commutes are statistically more dangerous than evening commutes, the impact of DST actually has less of a statistical impact on them than it does the evening commute. Put differently, the accident rate decreases more significantly for evening drivers than it increases for morning drivers.
The disruption is all in IT. Computers don't just magically know what time it is. They have a chip that tells them the number of microseconds since some arbitrary date (happens to be Jan 1, 1970, which means a 32bit int is gonna run out sometime around 2038 - the next "y2k" problem).
2038 has nothing to do with DST, nor do computers rely on hardcoded DST information any more. Most modern computers set their clocks from a network which sets its clock from another network or source. As for DST, that is mainly handled through a database query upstream. For instance, when you wake up in the morning on Sunday, assuming you are in the US, your cell phone will show the correct time. It doesn't have some chip embedded in it saying when DST begins or ends like days gone by. It gets its time signal from the cell tower which gets it from your carrier's time source.
While 2038 may be a problem for personal computers it is unrelated to the economic impact of changing the clocks because of DST.
The broken window fallacy doesn't apply in this case. Here, the premise is there is a direct cost associated with the change in DST, at least in the way the OP presented it. If there is a direct cost, either more wages are paid or more supplies are used or more fuel or more of any other resource, then somebody on the other side of that transaction, whether an employee a supplier or some other manufacturer has had an increase in their economic position. Once company cannot spend more money without somebody else receiving more money. That is why I differentiated between simple $5B in additional costs and lost economic activity. Lost economic activity definitely does fall under the broken window fallacy.
It should also be noted that the broken window fallacy is not universally accepted and often hotly contested among economists (just look at the debate over cash for clunkers the US did during the recession).
Current estimates is that the DST change of 2005 cost the economy $5 billion in expenses *just to keep working at all* - that's 5 billion that wasn't spent on improvements, or new features, or anything actually giving new value to their customers. It simply ceased to exist, for the illusion of savings in other markets (energy and retail) that never materialized.
If it cost $5B in expenses, that means somebody enjoyed $5B in revenues. OTOH, if it cost business $5B in lossed economic activity, that would be a drain on the economy. Almost all studies tied to the cost/benefit of DST are contradictory because there are so many variables and methodologies involved.
These studies do aggree, however, that retailers prefer DST because it brings in more customers, traffic safety is improved because of more light for evening commutes and people tend to be more active outside than they would have been without it (leading to health benefits). So, while corporate America might not like it, consumer America, evidently does. And it is consumerism that ultimately driving the economy.
BTW, if the time shifts are causing so much disruption for big business, there's nothing to say they have to keep the same work schedule. They could just as easily change their start and stop times to coincide with the change to/from DST. You would think if it would save them $5B, they would jump at that. Chances are, they know the changeover doesn't cost them that much and that is why they don't.
Well, if you are going to go as far as the Shrager suggests, then why not just eliminate all time zones. Let people on the West Coast get up and go to work at noon and go home at 8pm? Or you could go the otherway and people in New York get up and go to work at 6am and go home at 2pm but using the standard clock in CA. Or, you could pick the midwest as the middle and let both costs, were the majority of people live either go to work and school in the dark or come home that way.
If you don't like Daylight Saving Time, fine lobby to abolish it or to make it permanent. That is a totally different case than eliminating time zones.
I think you are overcomplicating it. Look at how many millions, if not billions of spreadsheets that are in use to solve various problems. Each of those hard coded formulas in Excel are basically a black box with predefined inputs and outputs. What is lacking are the black boxes to control logic flow. But really, that would not be difficult at all.
The biggest challenge is that such a model, when you get past the terminology, creates structured code versus today's paradigm of OOP. Obviously the predefined components are objects, but they don't have inheritance, and all of the other properties we take for granted now a days. Code generated this way could actually be fairly robust, but couldn't be inherited either so like in the old days, a lot of duplicate work would be involved for similar systems.
From an end user perspective, though, that probably isn't an issue. Again, look at all of those spreadsheets, many of them quite sophisticated and used in ways that were never intended by the developers of Excel. Would a professional programmer use such a tool? Probably not, but then such a tool isn't actually designed for them.
A much more basic and simpler and safer solution would be to just not wear the headset while driving.
Except that then you couldn't use it for navigation.
That is true, you would have to rely on the built in navigation system of the vehicle or a regular gps, if you were wanting not to break the law in those states that prohibit something like Google Glass.
Both of which increase the danger of distracted driving, by requiring you to move your eyes and shift your focus farther in order to see the display.
There are no studies that show that using the in-dash navigation system or a stand alone GPS system increase the danger of distracted driving compared to using Google Glass. And while it is true, that you have to move your eyes and change your focus to see the gps device, it is also true you have to move your eyes and change your focus, even for Google Glass. The same is true for these HUDs that are appearing on high end cars. But to date, there is only conjecture that one method is safer than the others, not real, verifiable data.
A much more basic and simpler and safer solution would be to just not wear the headset while driving.
Except that then you couldn't use it for navigation.
That is true, you would have to rely on the built in navigation system of the vehicle or a regular gps, if you were wanting not to break the law in those states that prohibit something like Google Glass.
A software tweak to Glass could easily allow it to satisfy the requirements of that law. Basically, just disable anything other than navigation when in a vehicle (perhaps detected by proximity to the vehicle bluetooth) and when the vehicle is moving.
That would be a solution, assuming bluetooth is on, or it could use the gps in the headset to monitor the location and speed and calculate that you are in a moving vehicle. There was a similar discussion a few weeks ago about something like this for cell phones to keep drivers from using them. Of course either of those solutions would mean that your passengers would lose the ability to use theirs, too.
A much more basic and simpler and safer solution would be to just not wear the headset while driving.
Actually, the law is about television screens.
More specifically it is about prohibiting drivers from operating a vehicle with a television broadcast or video signal in view in front of them. With regards to the television broadcast, Google Glass would not be considered a violation. However, the video signal is being displayed literally right in front of the driver's eye, so that is the part that the law that is being violated. California is not alone with this statute and other states have amended theirs specifically to include devices like Google Glass to remove any ambiguity. Specifically exempted by the CA law are displays related to the operation of the vehicle and gps devices. Here is the actual law: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d12/vc27602.htm
Wow, way to go off on a completely unrelated -- and ridiculous! -- tangent. Or did you just completely miss the point that the law violated by wearing Glass appears to be equally violated by the screen in a Prius?
The law is specifically about computer displays in front of the driver. , the inboard display on the Prius isn't a computer, so, no, it doesn't violate the law in CA or the other state. The fact that it could be used as one in a different context doesn't matter. As it is in the car, it is not because the Prius is not a computer. That's the point. Likewise, a GPS isn't a computer under the LAW either. However, Google Glass is a computer and therefore, the display sitting right in front of your eye, violates the law. CA isn't the only state that has and enforces this type of law and others are actually passing legislation specifically aimed at Google Glass to remove any confusion.
If you can't see the difference between a Prius (and similar cars with on board displays) and Google Glass, you shouldn't be allowed to use either.
So, what you're saying is that you can't articulate the difference. Got it.
I have no need to articulate the difference, you are the one that seems confused. Simply put, though the Toyota Prius is a car you drive to get from point A to point B. My spouse drives one every day, so I am quite familiar with it, its capabilities and systems. As for the Google Glass, it is a wearable computer. I don't own one, and have only read about it.
A more accurate description of Google Glass is Google Glass is a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) that is being developed by Google in the Project Glass research and development project, with a mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer. Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format, that can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.
I'm not sure how somebody could confuse the two, but, maybe if you would articulate what is confusing you between them, somebody on slashdot could explain it for you.