It's worse now that the everything's digital. One single batch email to all unsuccessful applicants -- would that be too much to ask? Apparently so. Shoddy.
They never, NEVER, intended to hold up their side of the copyright bargain.
They never actually thought about it.
I mean, copyright expiration was something nobody really planned for, it just happened, and the material was out there. The situation with TV can be compared with the controversy of GPL on SaaS platforms: because the service provider never distributes the object code, they never have to redistribute the source code. Broadcast material has no physical medium, so there was initially no way for the receiver to archive it. It wasn't a conspiracy, just no-one thought about the implications.
It's worth noting that in books, the principle was established in many countries that copies must be provided for "deposit libraries" that archive them to ensure that the contents are never lost to academics. Why wasn't this extended to broadcast media? I'm guessing the initial motivation wasn't campaigning by the broadcasters, but intellectual snobbery by the librarians (TV is still looked down on by many "serious" types as a frivolous triviality) and the immense cost of storage for the very fussy early film/tape media.
If you can copy it in the UK, then you have a valid legal copy there. Are you allowed to bring your valid legal copy into the US? If so, then it's in PD in the US, in that anyone can go to the UK, print 10,000 copies, and bring them back, right?
No. There's a legally-recognised difference between importing for personal use and importing for resale.
See also controlled medicines, alcohol and tobaco.
I think you miss my point -- I Don't Want To Have To Carry The Cable. I want to have a charger in the office and a charger at home, including the cable, and be able to charge anything I happen to have with me.
The Jedi, the most powerful beings in the galaxy, and within 20 years of their mass slaughter, they're forgotten and a joke,
Is that really that incredible? The Empire has every reason to make the Force seem like a "silly religion", both to hide Palpatine's true power and keep anyone from investigating the old stories and perhaps re-establishing a new Jedi Order. Real world is ripe of examples of just how easy it is to make people believe absurd bullshit.
Yes it is that incredible. The Jedi are running around commanding armies and a handful of them can do the work of an entire platoon in battle. They fly round the galaxy as embassadors of the Republic resolving disputes with their wisdom (and their ability to read the minds of the other party, which isn't particularly just and fair, to be honest). You cannot make people forget that quick -- hell, Motti probably served under a Jedi at the start of his career. The outwash of the massacre of the Jedi would realistically have to be more like McCarthyism -- Jedi's as the great evil bad thing, and we'd be more likely to have people lynching someone for being suspiciously lucky with the dice and therefore a Jedi witch than people laughing about them.
But the very smartphone market is proving that things just work without legislation. I think the iPhone is about the only phone which doesn't currently charge through a microUSB port, but even it ships with a... drumroll.... USB wall adapter.
So I have to carry my... drumroll... single solitary £15 Lightning cable with me everywhere, rather than carrying a 99p no brand USB cable... or... drumroll... borrowing a universally accepted standard one when I get there.
That's a strawman. Fraud requires into to... well... defraud, so it only counts when you break the rules for personal profit. The one-handed rule in craps is to prevent cheating (introduction of loaded dice or manipulation of spin. Breaking the rule isn't instantly and undoutedly cheating, but if you break the rule and win, the croupier is well within his rights to refuse to pay up. In order to charge someone with fraud, you'd have to have significant evidence beyond breaking the rules.
The conspiracy aspect of the new trilogy is very black helicopters and tin foil hat in nature, and seems to naturally fit in our era today. Whereas the original trilogy was largely a light heroic high fantasy adventure, the new trilogy was a dark tale about corrupt governments, secret alliances, and a shakespearean tragic hero.
Episodes 2 and 3 were an exercise in futility, with the good guys fighting the bad guys on behalf of the bad guys. If they'd wanted epic tragedy, they should have had the Trade Federation be genuinely free from Palpatine and Dooku, and genuinely been building the Death Star to defend the galaxy. Then it would have been Obi-Wan who was responsible for the fate of the galaxy.
They also shouldn't have turned the Jedi from being a bunch of Shaolin-style zen masters to the Team Jedi: Galactic Police. Remember that Leia refered to Obi-Wan as "General Kenobi". Despite his abilities, he was considered a soldier, not a superhero. His talk of a "bygone age" was drawn from the decline of the samurai, and taken along with Admiral Motti's challenging of Vader, it just doesn't make sense. The Jedi, the most powerful beings in the galaxy, and within 20 years of their mass slaughter, they're forgotten and a joke, and Obi-Wan's wistfully reminiscing about them, instead of having 'nam-style flashbacks to the worst trauma he had ever faced?
2) If people are sensitive to perceived motion, then perhaps,- and I'm just throwing this out there, understand?- perhaps they should be careful what devices they buy/own, and what software they use on said devices.
Ah, the old "go find another pub - we're not fitting a wheelchair ramp" argument.
Charging larger devices like tablets is a problem for microUSB because it barely carries enough power (2.5 W) to run the tablet with little left over for charging.
Which begs the question: why does my iPad automatically switch on when I start charging it? It's not like I can use it when it's plugged in, cos the cable's far too short. Is this a deliberate attempt to cripple charging over USB?
As 3.0 contains a fully backwards-compatible 2.0 port, I don't see a problem. Mandate USB 2, and USB 3 is covered, and manufacturers will favour it when they expect the device to be involved in shifting a lot of data.
No, this is because of Apple. The EU said "voluntary standard or we legislate" and the device manufacturers agreed a voluntary standard that had too many loopholes, so the EU kept its promise and legislated.
Now on the other hand look at the power. Isn't it amazing that despite no EU legislation forcing the countries to act it's possible to use just about any device anywhere with a simple adapter? Hell for a non-earthed device (which many consumer devices are) you don't even need an adapter since the pin spacing and size is almost common, though trust the Italians to do things differently.
Actually, the EU agreed a change to voltage specs to harmonise mains electricity in the EU. Previously, voltages were similar enough that there usually wasn't a problem. NB: usually.
Isn't it amazing that I in a 240V country can take my laptop to the USA and happily plug it into the wall without problem despite being a completely different powersupply? That is the result of market forces. People started buying things that could be conveniently used overseas.
Market forces, yes; people buying stuff for overseas use, no. Honestly, very few people think far enough ahead to pay extra for compatibility. However, for device manufacturers, having a single device that just needed a plug replacement to be marketable in another region was a cost saving, and extra profit. Everyone was a winner from standardisation.
But mains ratings are part of national infrastructure, and non-compliance freezes manufacturers out of the market. There is no similar force encouraging standardisation in things such as phones, and intervention IS required.So my next phone probably won't come with a charger, so what? I've already got multiple chargers both for UK and continental European mains, and I have a laptop, too.
The current free market is not a TRUELY free market. Everything that is wrong with the world is because of the govorment.
Yes. evils like statutory sick pay, health and safety in the workplace and living wage legislation have really destroyed our ability to generate wealth through heavenly annointed sweatshops.
There's nothing to stop Apple keeping the Lightning connector and having a second plug that's only wired up for charging. They might even attempt to artifivially limit the charging speed to say "Lightning's better"....
The better standard would simply require standardization at the OTHER end of the cable. Require all phones to come with a cable that has a standard USB A plug. That can then be charged into any USB Charger or USB Host. And BTW Apple already provides that. Both a USB to Lightning cable and a USB charger.
However, the replacement is not a commodity part, now that iOS rejects dumb charging leads without a Lightning chip in them. Official leads cost more than most chargers!
And what happens when micro-USB is deprecated? Do we go back to some EU overseer commission for approval again?
Yes, and this is good, because it means that the manufacturers need to propose a new standard connector rather than introducing a new proprietary one and reopening the compatibility wars.
This is one of the least significant problems facing most societies today. No wonder EU birthrates are dropping - there must be something in the water.
By that reasoning, I must demand to know why you are here wasting time on this silly little issue rather than spending all your time eliminating illiteracy and child poverty while simultaneously developing the cures for AIDS and cancer.
It's quite practical to deal with the not-most-important-but-still-quite-important problems even bfore the big and difficult ones have been resolved.
How does standardizing replaceable batteries cut waste? Chargers yes because then you need fewer of them and a charger doesn't become waste just because the device fails since you can use it with other devices. But batteries never outlast devices (unless you break the device in a very special way) and if a device is still usable but the battery is worn, it's almost certain that there are original batteries - not to mention exploding third party ones - available.
I still have a 2005 cheapo phone on the go, but its battery life is now pretty weak. I have twice tried to replace it with similar cheapo phones, but both times, these phones broke, and I went back to me trusty first phone, with its battery life still steadily reducing. I will need to buy a new phone as soon as work picks up, because it just won't handle any heavy use. I'm a bit dubious of random parts off the internet....
Furthermore, standardizing batteries would reduce consumer choices since the battery size is part of the device form factor and different vendors offer different trade-offs between device size and battery life. However, standardizing the chargers really does benefit consumers (and reduces waste).
Banning leaded petrol reduced consumer choice, but we still did it, and it was the right thing to do. Besides, there are hundreds of different mobile phone batteries on the market. Standardisation only needs to reduce that to dozens in order to improve on the current situation. Look at the number of standard batteries in the average supermaket. Various button cells and stick cells. Go to a camera shop and there will also be stubby stick cells for the electronics in older film cameras. All-in-all, there's about two-dozen standard multipurpose "consumer" cells. You can get a lot of form factors in two dozen.
The point is that we don't know what will make sense in the future, and locking in a particular form factor by law forever would not be a good idea.
It's not "forever" -- they can update their laws at a later date. What this does do is mean that if the industry wants to abandon the established standard, they're going to have to do it by presenting a new standard, not by each doing their own thng. This might result in more successful wireless charging, because if they're forced to present a single standard, hotels, airport lounges and the like will be more likely to fit them for customer use.
...or there's a source of stress other than cable insertion/removal. Vibrations in transport, impacts from dropping, knocking of hanging jacket/bag against wall etc.
I would turn to them and tell them that software accessibility is a legal requirement and that iOS7 is therefore currently not compliant with either the UK Disability Discrimination Act or the Special Education Needs and Disability Act, or indeed EU laws, and that they are obliged to provide you with something which does not trigger your medical condition.
No, he's comparing a dated, low end Android phone like you would get from a prepaid carrier with a subsidized iPhone. If you're comparing only the interface, it's a legitimate comparison.
It's not necessarily only the interface. Does it do everything you need it to? If so, does it do it more conveniently than an iPhone?
iOS's biggest advantage over Android is its I/O syncing. Music apps (virtual instruments and recording) don't run well under Android because of lag. (Or at least never used to. Google may have sorted this by now.) I'm staggered by the power of my iPad Mini, and I can't imagine myself ever needing that much grunt in a phone. The latest and greatest iPhone is guaranteed to be objectively "better" by all hardware metrics than almost every Android device, but that doesn't mean it's going to do what you need done any quicker than a cheaper device.
Slashdot Mirror
Loyalty does exit.
Surely exiting is disloyal..? ;-p
It's worse now that the everything's digital. One single batch email to all unsuccessful applicants -- would that be too much to ask? Apparently so. Shoddy.
They never, NEVER, intended to hold up their side of the copyright bargain.
They never actually thought about it.
I mean, copyright expiration was something nobody really planned for, it just happened, and the material was out there. The situation with TV can be compared with the controversy of GPL on SaaS platforms: because the service provider never distributes the object code, they never have to redistribute the source code. Broadcast material has no physical medium, so there was initially no way for the receiver to archive it. It wasn't a conspiracy, just no-one thought about the implications.
It's worth noting that in books, the principle was established in many countries that copies must be provided for "deposit libraries" that archive them to ensure that the contents are never lost to academics. Why wasn't this extended to broadcast media? I'm guessing the initial motivation wasn't campaigning by the broadcasters, but intellectual snobbery by the librarians (TV is still looked down on by many "serious" types as a frivolous triviality) and the immense cost of storage for the very fussy early film/tape media.
If you can copy it in the UK, then you have a valid legal copy there. Are you allowed to bring your valid legal copy into the US? If so, then it's in PD in the US, in that anyone can go to the UK, print 10,000 copies, and bring them back, right?
No. There's a legally-recognised difference between importing for personal use and importing for resale.
See also controlled medicines, alcohol and tobaco.
Dude, these are puns. You want memes?
In Soviet Russia, slashdot memes you!
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of hackneyed /. memes.
Frist psot.
I think you miss my point -- I Don't Want To Have To Carry The Cable. I want to have a charger in the office and a charger at home, including the cable, and be able to charge anything I happen to have with me.
Is that really that incredible? The Empire has every reason to make the Force seem like a "silly religion", both to hide Palpatine's true power and keep anyone from investigating the old stories and perhaps re-establishing a new Jedi Order. Real world is ripe of examples of just how easy it is to make people believe absurd bullshit.
Yes it is that incredible. The Jedi are running around commanding armies and a handful of them can do the work of an entire platoon in battle. They fly round the galaxy as embassadors of the Republic resolving disputes with their wisdom (and their ability to read the minds of the other party, which isn't particularly just and fair, to be honest). You cannot make people forget that quick -- hell, Motti probably served under a Jedi at the start of his career. The outwash of the massacre of the Jedi would realistically have to be more like McCarthyism -- Jedi's as the great evil bad thing, and we'd be more likely to have people lynching someone for being suspiciously lucky with the dice and therefore a Jedi witch than people laughing about them.
But the very smartphone market is proving that things just work without legislation. I think the iPhone is about the only phone which doesn't currently charge through a microUSB port, but even it ships with a ... drumroll .... USB wall adapter.
So I have to carry my... drumroll... single solitary £15 Lightning cable with me everywhere, rather than carrying a 99p no brand USB cable... or... drumroll... borrowing a universally accepted standard one when I get there.
That's a strawman. Fraud requires into to... well... defraud, so it only counts when you break the rules for personal profit. The one-handed rule in craps is to prevent cheating (introduction of loaded dice or manipulation of spin. Breaking the rule isn't instantly and undoutedly cheating, but if you break the rule and win, the croupier is well within his rights to refuse to pay up. In order to charge someone with fraud, you'd have to have significant evidence beyond breaking the rules.
The conspiracy aspect of the new trilogy is very black helicopters and tin foil hat in nature, and seems to naturally fit in our era today. Whereas the original trilogy was largely a light heroic high fantasy adventure, the new trilogy was a dark tale about corrupt governments, secret alliances, and a shakespearean tragic hero.
Episodes 2 and 3 were an exercise in futility, with the good guys fighting the bad guys on behalf of the bad guys. If they'd wanted epic tragedy, they should have had the Trade Federation be genuinely free from Palpatine and Dooku, and genuinely been building the Death Star to defend the galaxy. Then it would have been Obi-Wan who was responsible for the fate of the galaxy.
They also shouldn't have turned the Jedi from being a bunch of Shaolin-style zen masters to the Team Jedi: Galactic Police. Remember that Leia refered to Obi-Wan as "General Kenobi". Despite his abilities, he was considered a soldier, not a superhero. His talk of a "bygone age" was drawn from the decline of the samurai, and taken along with Admiral Motti's challenging of Vader, it just doesn't make sense. The Jedi, the most powerful beings in the galaxy, and within 20 years of their mass slaughter, they're forgotten and a joke, and Obi-Wan's wistfully reminiscing about them, instead of having 'nam-style flashbacks to the worst trauma he had ever faced?
2) If people are sensitive to perceived motion, then perhaps,- and I'm just throwing this out there, understand?- perhaps they should be careful what devices they buy/own, and what software they use on said devices.
Ah, the old "go find another pub - we're not fitting a wheelchair ramp" argument.
Charging larger devices like tablets is a problem for microUSB because it barely carries enough power (2.5 W) to run the tablet with little left over for charging.
Which begs the question: why does my iPad automatically switch on when I start charging it? It's not like I can use it when it's plugged in, cos the cable's far too short. Is this a deliberate attempt to cripple charging over USB?
As 3.0 contains a fully backwards-compatible 2.0 port, I don't see a problem. Mandate USB 2, and USB 3 is covered, and manufacturers will favour it when they expect the device to be involved in shifting a lot of data.
No, this is because of Apple. The EU said "voluntary standard or we legislate" and the device manufacturers agreed a voluntary standard that had too many loopholes, so the EU kept its promise and legislated.
Now on the other hand look at the power. Isn't it amazing that despite no EU legislation forcing the countries to act it's possible to use just about any device anywhere with a simple adapter? Hell for a non-earthed device (which many consumer devices are) you don't even need an adapter since the pin spacing and size is almost common, though trust the Italians to do things differently.
Actually, the EU agreed a change to voltage specs to harmonise mains electricity in the EU. Previously, voltages were similar enough that there usually wasn't a problem. NB: usually.
Isn't it amazing that I in a 240V country can take my laptop to the USA and happily plug it into the wall without problem despite being a completely different powersupply? That is the result of market forces. People started buying things that could be conveniently used overseas.
Market forces, yes; people buying stuff for overseas use, no. Honestly, very few people think far enough ahead to pay extra for compatibility. However, for device manufacturers, having a single device that just needed a plug replacement to be marketable in another region was a cost saving, and extra profit. Everyone was a winner from standardisation.
But mains ratings are part of national infrastructure, and non-compliance freezes manufacturers out of the market. There is no similar force encouraging standardisation in things such as phones, and intervention IS required.So my next phone probably won't come with a charger, so what? I've already got multiple chargers both for UK and continental European mains, and I have a laptop, too.
The current free market is not a TRUELY free market. Everything that is wrong with the world is because of the govorment.
Yes. evils like statutory sick pay, health and safety in the workplace and living wage legislation have really destroyed our ability to generate wealth through heavenly annointed sweatshops.
There's nothing to stop Apple keeping the Lightning connector and having a second plug that's only wired up for charging. They might even attempt to artifivially limit the charging speed to say "Lightning's better"....
The better standard would simply require standardization at the OTHER end of the cable. Require all phones to come with a cable that has a standard USB A plug. That can then be charged into any USB Charger or USB Host. And BTW Apple already provides that. Both a USB to Lightning cable and a USB charger.
However, the replacement is not a commodity part, now that iOS rejects dumb charging leads without a Lightning chip in them. Official leads cost more than most chargers!
And what happens when micro-USB is deprecated? Do we go back to some EU overseer commission for approval again?
Yes, and this is good, because it means that the manufacturers need to propose a new standard connector rather than introducing a new proprietary one and reopening the compatibility wars.
This is one of the least significant problems facing most societies today. No wonder EU birthrates are dropping - there must be something in the water.
By that reasoning, I must demand to know why you are here wasting time on this silly little issue rather than spending all your time eliminating illiteracy and child poverty while simultaneously developing the cures for AIDS and cancer.
It's quite practical to deal with the not-most-important-but-still-quite-important problems even bfore the big and difficult ones have been resolved.
How does standardizing replaceable batteries cut waste? Chargers yes because then you need fewer of them and a charger doesn't become waste just because the device fails since you can use it with other devices. But batteries never outlast devices (unless you break the device in a very special way) and if a device is still usable but the battery is worn, it's almost certain that there are original batteries - not to mention exploding third party ones - available.
I still have a 2005 cheapo phone on the go, but its battery life is now pretty weak. I have twice tried to replace it with similar cheapo phones, but both times, these phones broke, and I went back to me trusty first phone, with its battery life still steadily reducing. I will need to buy a new phone as soon as work picks up, because it just won't handle any heavy use. I'm a bit dubious of random parts off the internet....
Furthermore, standardizing batteries would reduce consumer choices since the battery size is part of the device form factor and different vendors offer different trade-offs between device size and battery life. However, standardizing the chargers really does benefit consumers (and reduces waste).
Banning leaded petrol reduced consumer choice, but we still did it, and it was the right thing to do. Besides, there are hundreds of different mobile phone batteries on the market. Standardisation only needs to reduce that to dozens in order to improve on the current situation. Look at the number of standard batteries in the average supermaket. Various button cells and stick cells. Go to a camera shop and there will also be stubby stick cells for the electronics in older film cameras. All-in-all, there's about two-dozen standard multipurpose "consumer" cells. You can get a lot of form factors in two dozen.
The point is that we don't know what will make sense in the future, and locking in a particular form factor by law forever would not be a good idea.
It's not "forever" -- they can update their laws at a later date. What this does do is mean that if the industry wants to abandon the established standard, they're going to have to do it by presenting a new standard, not by each doing their own thng. This might result in more successful wireless charging, because if they're forced to present a single standard, hotels, airport lounges and the like will be more likely to fit them for customer use.
...or there's a source of stress other than cable insertion/removal. Vibrations in transport, impacts from dropping, knocking of hanging jacket/bag against wall etc.
I would turn to them and tell them that software accessibility is a legal requirement and that iOS7 is therefore currently not compliant with either the UK Disability Discrimination Act or the Special Education Needs and Disability Act, or indeed EU laws, and that they are obliged to provide you with something which does not trigger your medical condition.
Unfortunately, this does not hold for vestibular disorders.
No, he's comparing a dated, low end Android phone like you would get from a prepaid carrier with a subsidized iPhone. If you're comparing only the interface, it's a legitimate comparison.
It's not necessarily only the interface. Does it do everything you need it to? If so, does it do it more conveniently than an iPhone?
iOS's biggest advantage over Android is its I/O syncing. Music apps (virtual instruments and recording) don't run well under Android because of lag. (Or at least never used to. Google may have sorted this by now.) I'm staggered by the power of my iPad Mini, and I can't imagine myself ever needing that much grunt in a phone. The latest and greatest iPhone is guaranteed to be objectively "better" by all hardware metrics than almost every Android device, but that doesn't mean it's going to do what you need done any quicker than a cheaper device.