Or maybe you just haven't looked at the law closely enough (if at all). GPS and mapping applications are explicitly exempted.
The law only exempts them if the device displaying them is "installed" in the vehicle. If your passenger is using a map program on a laptop to navigate, you are breaking the law.
Think of MS like 3M: could 3M survive simply by producing Post-It Notes? No, they have a huge amount of diversity and R&D running to find the Next Big Thing. The more products you throw at the market, the more chances you have of staying power.
I attended a physics lecture some years ago, given by an engineer from 3M and a local scientist who had developed a high-tech plastic film being marketed by 3M. The 3M guy mentioned something along the lines of your comment in his presentation. I forget the exact numbers now, but it was something like that the company's policy is that 50% of their sales revenue in any given year should be from products developed in the last three years. Pretty daring for the company that makes Scotch tape and Post-It Notes.
Anyone does not go along with the change begins suffering more and more as they run into more and more "new stuff" that doesn't work. They get error messages when they try to instal new software. They get error messages when they try to open new files. They get error messages when they try to view a new website. They get error messages when they try to read E-mail. Error messages saying that they have "old" and "obsolete" hardware. Messages telling them they need to "upgrade".
In the end, this may be what saves us all. Many people don't upgrade their hardware and software all that frequently. Businesses outside the computer industry also tend not to. The huge base of existing hardware that is not "trusted" provides a strong disincentive for any software manufacturer or website operator considering limiting access to "trusted" systems only.
In fact, if trusted computing succeeds, it will be through the opposite route: making non-trusted hardware and OS software effectively unavailable to the masses first and then rolling out websites and software that require this capability only after most users have the required hardware. This could take a very long time, given the slowing rates of hardware turnover.
The trouble is that it isn't safe to allow cigarette lighters in checked luggage, so they pretty much have to allow people to bring them in their carry-on. It's too common an item to forbid people from bringing it altogether.
Well, the reason the Atari drives were so much more expensive was that they were "intelligent", which in this case meant you'd issue a few-byte command like "read sector $04A" and you'd get back a 128-byte frame.
That reminds me: the early Commodore 8250 floppy drives (for the PET) were even more intelligent. The drive unit was a massive box (about the size of a modern PC) with two drives in it and a SCSI interface to connect to the computer. It was controlled with ASCII commands sent to the drive. The drive unit contained its own 6502 microprocessor, just like the one in the computer. With some work one could write programs that ran in the disk drive. Mostly these involved blinking the drive lights.
There are some interesting Commodore brochures here.
I had an Atari 800. It was a good computer for the money. It was a lot cheaper than the Apple II, and it seemed to me that it had better graphics and sound (though I never really knew the Apples well).
They came out with larger drives after a while: "double density" 180k disks. Also, most users would use a hole punch to make an extra write-protect notch on their disks so that they could flip the disks over, format the back side, and have double the storage. Were the Apple disks double-sided? That would explain why they had more storage capacity.
So, there's nine people standing on a narrow staircase out in the middle of nowhere, with thousands of orcs shooting at them, and they all miss. Legolas is shooting at orcs spread out, behind shadows and in cover, and hits every one. Now, orcs aren't as good as elves, but they're not *that* bad.
Actually, that one didn't bother me much. There aren't thousands of orcs shooting at them, there are only a few (presumably the first ones who could get to the gallery from which they are shooting). I took the orcs' poor aim to be mostly a range issue. They are a long way away. The fellowship is basically out of their range. Legolas has a much better quality bow and superior vision, as well as being a better marksman.
If a measure bans domain forging and creates a national Do Not Spam list, I can more than live with the occasional opt-out mail from E-Bay. Sorry.
If the measure worked the way you think it will, most of the people for whom spam is a religious issue would agree with you. The problem is that those of us who have been around a while know that a national "Do Not Spam" list will not work. The trouble is that most of the spammers out there are dishonest, and they are very hard to catch. The guy who hijacks a thousand PC's with a virus and uses them to send ads for Paris Hilton tapes is just going to download the government's "Do Not Spam" list, and send spam preferentially to people on that list. There is not much more valuable to a spammer than a list of addresses that are known to be "live", and the FTC does not really have the resources to go after them.
Do not spam lists have been tried before. Some marketing association set one up in the 90's. Virgin accounts signed up on the registry immediately began receiving spam. It will be the same this time.
No, you would have to opt out for every division of every company that spams you. And the spammers are perfectly free to create a new "division" for each spam campaign. The opt-out provisions in this law are really utterly worthless.
No wonder they called it the "can spam" act. It tells everyone that they can spam you all they want.
Yes... Survival of the fittest...
If you're dumb enough to buy the latest, greatest, completely untested snake-oil cure, then any side-effects you may incur are self-inflicted, and you will get no sympathy from me.
Ah, but how would you know if what you are buying is snake oil? Are you, personally, capable of looking up each and every medicine you might use in the medical literature, evaluating the test results for yourself, and determining whether the medication has been proven to be safe and effective? Most doctors would not be able to do this. The drug companies would be free to develop "cures", do some cursory testing, and then put them on the market. Ordinary physicians, and their customers, would have no easy way to evaluate which medicines are really safe and effective and which are not.
Interestingly enough, if you read the law below, it seems they can lock this guy away for up to 10 years. With Canadian law (of which I'm hardly an expert) does that mean they can add ten years to the sentence he'll get for the child porn, or does he have to serve the sentence at the same time?
I believe under Canadian law it's up to the judge. The sentences can be either "concurrent" or "consecutive". Concurrent sentences are more typical though.
You missed the point. The reason to print the receipt after each person votes rather than printing off a report later is so the voter can see the receipt and verify that the machine has correctly recorded the vote. Even if not every voter bothers to check the receipt, enough will that a malfunctioning machine will be detected. The receipts than allow for a recount to be done later if there is some doubt about the machine's accuracy or if the machine crashes.
I don't think this would work. (and I Am An Optical Engineer). If you wanted to scan the beam across a square area comparable to a CD by tilting the source, it would have to be pretty far from the media. Your square CD (call it a Compact Square: "CS") would have to be 3.75"x3.75" to have the same storage area as a CD. If we optimisticly assume the tilt mechanism can tilt the beam through a 120 degree arc the source would have to be 1" away from the CS in order to cover the whole area. That would make compact players more difficult to design. You end up with a lot of "wasted" air space above the CS.
Worse, the light would hit the media at an angle. The reflected beam from the surface would then bounce off at an equal angle (pointed away from the source). In order to pick up the reflected beam you would then have to do a 2D raster scan with the detector. Unless you are prepared to do that scan over an area twice as wide as the actual CS, the detector has to be closer to the surface than the source is. This can be worked out but you will lose some storage area in the middle of the surface due to the need to avoid having the detector block the beam from the source.
It's a lot simpler to mount the source and detector together such that the beams are perpendicular to the surface and the surface spins underneath. The technology for this is well established and mature so there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
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The law only exempts them if the device displaying them is "installed" in the vehicle. If your passenger is using a map program on a laptop to navigate, you are breaking the law.
Actually, no. The sugared drink industry quite happily started selling little bottles of water for $1.50 each.
I attended a physics lecture some years ago, given by an engineer from 3M and a local scientist who had developed a high-tech plastic film being marketed by 3M. The 3M guy mentioned something along the lines of your comment in his presentation. I forget the exact numbers now, but it was something like that the company's policy is that 50% of their sales revenue in any given year should be from products developed in the last three years. Pretty daring for the company that makes Scotch tape and Post-It Notes.
In the end, this may be what saves us all. Many people don't upgrade their hardware and software all that frequently. Businesses outside the computer industry also tend not to. The huge base of existing hardware that is not "trusted" provides a strong disincentive for any software manufacturer or website operator considering limiting access to "trusted" systems only.
In fact, if trusted computing succeeds, it will be through the opposite route: making non-trusted hardware and OS software effectively unavailable to the masses first and then rolling out websites and software that require this capability only after most users have the required hardware. This could take a very long time, given the slowing rates of hardware turnover.
Some of this seems to have been fixed. The new list explicitly allows most of the "silly" items, like nail files, blunt scissors, and butter knives.
The trouble is that it isn't safe to allow cigarette lighters in checked luggage, so they pretty much have to allow people to bring them in their carry-on. It's too common an item to forbid people from bringing it altogether.
That reminds me: the early Commodore 8250 floppy drives (for the PET) were even more intelligent. The drive unit was a massive box (about the size of a modern PC) with two drives in it and a SCSI interface to connect to the computer. It was controlled with ASCII commands sent to the drive. The drive unit contained its own 6502 microprocessor, just like the one in the computer. With some work one could write programs that ran in the disk drive. Mostly these involved blinking the drive lights.
There are some interesting Commodore brochures here.
They came out with larger drives after a while: "double density" 180k disks. Also, most users would use a hole punch to make an extra write-protect notch on their disks so that they could flip the disks over, format the back side, and have double the storage. Were the Apple disks double-sided? That would explain why they had more storage capacity.
Those were the days.
Actually, that one didn't bother me much. There aren't thousands of orcs shooting at them, there are only a few (presumably the first ones who could get to the gallery from which they are shooting). I took the orcs' poor aim to be mostly a range issue. They are a long way away. The fellowship is basically out of their range. Legolas has a much better quality bow and superior vision, as well as being a better marksman.
The media doesn't have to be full, just not empty
If the measure worked the way you think it will, most of the people for whom spam is a religious issue would agree with you. The problem is that those of us who have been around a while know that a national "Do Not Spam" list will not work. The trouble is that most of the spammers out there are dishonest, and they are very hard to catch. The guy who hijacks a thousand PC's with a virus and uses them to send ads for Paris Hilton tapes is just going to download the government's "Do Not Spam" list, and send spam preferentially to people on that list. There is not much more valuable to a spammer than a list of addresses that are known to be "live", and the FTC does not really have the resources to go after them.
Do not spam lists have been tried before. Some marketing association set one up in the 90's. Virgin accounts signed up on the registry immediately began receiving spam. It will be the same this time.
No, you would have to opt out for every division of every company that spams you. And the spammers are perfectly free to create a new "division" for each spam campaign. The opt-out provisions in this law are really utterly worthless. No wonder they called it the "can spam" act. It tells everyone that they can spam you all they want.
Ah, but how would you know if what you are buying is snake oil? Are you, personally, capable of looking up each and every medicine you might use in the medical literature, evaluating the test results for yourself, and determining whether the medication has been proven to be safe and effective? Most doctors would not be able to do this. The drug companies would be free to develop "cures", do some cursory testing, and then put them on the market. Ordinary physicians, and their customers, would have no easy way to evaluate which medicines are really safe and effective and which are not.
I believe under Canadian law it's up to the judge. The sentences can be either "concurrent" or "consecutive". Concurrent sentences are more typical though.
(IANAL. IAAC.)
You missed the point. The reason to print the receipt after each person votes rather than printing off a report later is so the voter can see the receipt and verify that the machine has correctly recorded the vote. Even if not every voter bothers to check the receipt, enough will that a malfunctioning machine will be detected. The receipts than allow for a recount to be done later if there is some doubt about the machine's accuracy or if the machine crashes.
Worse, the light would hit the media at an angle. The reflected beam from the surface would then bounce off at an equal angle (pointed away from the source). In order to pick up the reflected beam you would then have to do a 2D raster scan with the detector. Unless you are prepared to do that scan over an area twice as wide as the actual CS, the detector has to be closer to the surface than the source is. This can be worked out but you will lose some storage area in the middle of the surface due to the need to avoid having the detector block the beam from the source.
It's a lot simpler to mount the source and detector together such that the beams are perpendicular to the surface and the surface spins underneath. The technology for this is well established and mature so there is no need to reinvent the wheel.