Yes. Rules like this probably reflect the difficulty of the issue. And when Microsoft was under scrutiny in the US, they claimed that the "browser is an integral part of the operating system". I.e. they put technical reasons forward.
Except there was a bit of wool-pulling there: the html rendering and http components may have been integral to the OS, but removing the IE "front end" - which is what competes with Firefox, Opera et. al. - is a cinch.
But the decision is artificially constrained by the exclusivity of the deal. It's anti-competitive.
...but that's not a problem with OEM bundling per se. PCs have come with bundled operating systems since the year dot. If a particular OS producer says to PC manufacturers "we won't license our OS to you at a competitive price if you also offer bare PCs or competing OSs" then you're back to antitrust law. (IANAL but I'm pretty sure that's never been legal - the problem is getting it enforced!)
If they ever achieve monopoly, I bet we will see them arguing "MacOS is an integral part of the Apple computer".
Well, it is: Windows minus IE is still Windows; a Mac minus Mac OS is just a generic PC in a designer case.
However, if Apple wanted a Mac monopoly they'd probably have to unbundle somewhere along the line anyway in order to offer a comprehensive range of hardware choices: their current bundling strategy makes perfect sense for a niche premium-priced laptop, SFF & workstation market. Currently, they seem happy there.
There are still major restrictions such as the AppStore.
The AppStore may be restrictive, but its also bootstrapped a largely new arm of the software industry. Its certainly not very Free As In Speech but it seems to have given a lot of small developers easy access to a huge market. Anyway - I see the App store as a temporary measure while mobile internet connections evolve: once you have dependable, always on mobile internet, browser-based "cloud" applications make so much more sense. Currently, if I want to run my own software on an iPhone, the best bet is to write it in AJAX and host it on my home server (which probably means it will work on Android, Palm, Nokia...).
My solution is to use free software (i.e. GNU/Linux, Amarok, Okular, Gwenview,...). This also allows you to be creative without getting taxed for it (e.g. LaTeX, Gimp, recordmydesktop, VIM, GCC, Ruby,...).
Until the EU demands that linux distros have a choice screen... "Do you want VIM or EMACS?", "Do you want to use LaTeX, DocBook, nroff...", "OpenOffice or KOffice or ABiword", "Amarok or Rhythmbox", "PHP, Perl or Python...":-)
(Yes, that's silly for all sorts of reasons, but be careful what you wish for because the EU and the DOJ are not particularly strong on common sense...)
The question is where does the manufacturer's choice stop and where does the customer's choice start.
Don't forget the monopoly/antitrust issue. If you have over 90% of the market, you have to live by different rules.
OEM deals, pre-installed Windows Vista on a PC (without installation media, with backup partitions taking up the whole hard disk)
That's a decision by the individual PC maker - its not impossible to buy a PC without Windows.
Pre-installed MacOS on Apple computers
Well, it was established in the Psystar case that Apple having a monopoly on Apple computers wasn't an antitrust issue. Meanwhile, Apple even bundle a utility to let you install Windows on your Mac...
Apple iTunes tying music and books to a certain device
Well, that's history with music, since Apple went over to DRM-free iTunes Plus and Amazon, Play.com etc. started selling DRM-free MP3s (and remember - iPods might not do.ogg but they can play.mp3 and unencrypted.aac from any source).
With books, true, but it needs sorting out for every DRM-encumbered ebook format, not just Apple. My solution: don't buy ebooks until they are (a) DRM-free and (b) somewhat cheaper (esp. for older books).
(has anyone seen competing browsers in the app store?)
Let's see:
Perfect Browser 3 Mercury web browser Privately - Web browser Full Browser Mango Browser Atomic Web Browser Show 18 more
Admittedly, they're probably all using the same browser widget from the OS. Also, AFAIK, we've yet to see whether Apple are going to raise any objection to Opera Mini...
Meanwhile, on your Mac, go to Apple Menu, "Mac OS X Software" to get the official Apple software downloads page and Firefox is currently #5 on the "Top Downloads" list. They don't exactly make it difficult...
is completely different from Microsoft
...with over 90% of the desktop OS market...
shipping their browser as part of the OS
...starting back in the day when OSs didn't routinely include web browsers, and a market in third-party web browsers was developing nicely...
and the default browser,
...while telling the antitrust hearings that it was totally impossible to change this...
and permitting the user to install new browsers for the past 14 years.
...a bit like Apple have always done on their computers (the EU ruling isn't about phones), you mean?
You obviously never used on of the original Apple Extended Keyboards, which had a great action on them and were fabulously durable. I kept using one right up until the loss of the ADB port.
I don't have a problem with the action - I have a problem with the key layout on the Apple "UK" keyboards, which gets really annoying if you are using both Macs and PCs.
3) Set forearm on tabletop. Relax muscles in hand so its resting in a slightly cupped position (not flat, that means tensing your muscles). Pick a mouse that fits comfortably in your hand in this position. Discover that you can then adopt the best of methods (1) and (2), using your forearm for large movements and fingers for small movements. Apple mice then either suck or rule depending on the size and shape of your hand.
(And my problem with the hockey puck was that it could get turned around in your hand...)
Actually, it is probably perjury. And that probably is the reason. They might not be able to prove the terrorism charge, but they'll convict you on the perjury charge.
IANAL but I think that to convict you of perjury for saying you weren't a terrorist they'd still have to prove that you were a terrorist.
On the other hand, deporting your arse out of the US (or firing you from your security-cleared job) for lying on a form probably only requires "reasonable suspicion" (the main thing you're doing on those nice green forms is waiving your right to appeal deportation or refusal of entry).
Love their products in general. MacPro and MacBook user myself but I hate their mice and their keyboards. They both have always sucked
This is true.
Missing item from the "worst" list is every Apple UK keyboard ever, which is just a US keyboard with the (#) key replaced by a (£) key, leaving all sorts of punctuation keys in the US positions. Fail.
I think the mouse problem is that you really need to go out and choose a mouse that fits your hand - Apple are constrained to (a) only having one or two models (b) making it one-size-fits-all and ambidextrous and (c) being obliged to make something "different" and "designer-y". Fortunately, for ages now, any PC USB mouse has worked fine, including multiple buttons and scroll wheels.
if our disk got there, they can get here and we gave them a freaking map and way to much information about us and our weaknesses.
Why would aliens need to go hunting for a tiny space probe traveling far slower than light, that won't reach them for aeons, when they could just tune into PBS and hear all about us?
Agreed that Flash needs to be replaced, but not with HTML 5.
For general "rich internet application" stuff, moving from proprietary Flash to standards-based HTML5 (+DOM/SVG/ECMAScript) should be good news for open source. The problem is not HTML 5 per se but that the only video codec that seems to be gaining widespread support in HTML 5 is the patent-encumbered H.264.
Newer versions of Flash look like shifting H.264 as the codec for video anyway (albeit with different packaging), so Flash vs. HTML5 is a non-issue on the video front.
Actually, I think they parted company when ECMAScript 4 was shelved: For one thing, Actionscript 2 and 3 include the extra "syntactic sugar" for a pseudo-class-based syntax, so anybody who learnt AS 2 or 3 first is going to have a nice culture shock switching to propotype-based ECMAScript.
(I feel a great disturbance in the slashdot, as if a billion advocates of prototype-based OOP cried out in anguish and... probably won't ever be silenced:-)
Point is though, as you say, they use a totally different DOM/application framework so the language similarities are partly irrelevant. Come to think about it, my main beef is that Adobe seem determined to introduce a completely new DOM with every release of Flash, not to mention Flex...
It is important that MPs/"MLs" must retain public confidence.
That ship has already sailed (on a nicely cleaned moat, nearly colliding with a duck house). The MPs are a laughing stock - being allowed to say "whoops - my bad" and pay them back doesn't really reassure the public much.
And, AFAIK, the CPS/Police investigation (the important one - dealing with the handful of claims that would get us mere mortals thrown in jail) has been running independently for months.
You do understand the difference between one-off costs and recurring costs, don't you?
Yes. Do you?
Fixing the system for the future stops the recurring costs. Those reforms have already been announced. Trying to claw back money from the claims which with hindsight were unreasonable is a one-off cost which always carried a risk of costing more than it recovered.
And you are aware that the police are bringing criminal charges against 4 members of parliament over their expenses which seem to be as a result of this enquiry.
Actually, the police have been investigating these for months. Its actually more likely that the Legg inquiry was waiting on the criminal investigations so they could avoid reporting on the MPs facing charges (which could prejudice the cases).
But no doubt you work for a company that never audits its own employees expenses because the police and taxman will make sure all claims are legitimate and anyway, who knows whether such an audit would recover it's own costs?
Actually, my employers won't pay a bean without a receipt and a justification, and which audits expenses because they are terrified of the taxman. If they started clawing back expenses because they changed their mind on what was allowable there would be a major row.
Worth pointing out perhaps that of the £1.16m spent a significant amount will be clawed back through income taxes,
I suspect that the people involved have rather good accountants and won't pay a brass farthing more in tax than they have to.
Meanwhile, remember that some of that "clawback" money had already been paid back voluntarily while some of it will never get repaid without incurring even more legal costs...
and there's no detail there of how much of that cost is actually incremental rather than an allocation of central costs that were going to be spent anyway.
Unless the staff in question were otherwise sitting around twiddling their thumbs on full salary (oh, and probably phoning lawyers and accountants from time to time for a billable-hours chat about football) that's still 1.2M worth of time and effort expended on job X that can't now be allocated to job Y.
The taxation point, by the by, is quite significant since one of the important points surrounding the excessive claims is that they were not being taxed, often at direct odds with the taxation rules governing you and I.
If you're paying UK income tax on bone fide expenses incurred as part of your job then you should get professional advice because you probably don't need to. If, however, you've avoided paying thousands of pounds of capital gains tax after selling your expenses-funded second home by telling the taxman it was your main residence, then there are some nice people in the Inland Revenue with black briefcases who most definitely are paid by centrally allocated funds to make your life a misery. Likewise, if you submit blatently fraudulent claims its a job for the Boys in Blue. As I said: fix the system for the future, and let the police and the taxmen deal with the small handful of really serious cases.
I can't believe governments are spending so much time and effort going after file sharing.
Don't worry, they still have time to spend £1.2M on an inquiry into expenses that has resulted in £1.1M being clawed back. (Instead of just fixing the gorram system and letting the police and taxmen deal with the handful of really dodgy cases).
The proposed rule itself is pretty inscrutable (as usual, I suppose),
.
But don't worry - we can rely on all those helpful and well-educated airport ground staff to correctly and consistently interpret the law and offer balanced and sensible advice to travelers.
We can also re-assure the check-in person that we haven't got batteries at the same time we're assuring them that our luggage has never left our side (even in the trunk of the bus, or when we left it behind the desk at the hotel while we went for lunch); avoiding asking whether the rules on flammable liquids applies to our bottle of "Jungle Formula" and assuming "has anybody given you anything to carry" only applies to ticking teddy bears and bags of white powder handed over by suspicious-looking johnny foreigners. (Seriously, in the entire history of air travel has anybody actually given the "wrong" answer to those questions?)
No, but then Barnes and Noble isn't the only place you can sell your book. If you don't like their policies, you can also put it up for sale on Amazon, Books-A-Million, any number of local bookstores, and probably even stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
...because major bookstore chains and stores like Walmart are so very well known for being friendly and accommodating to small, independent book producers and self-publishing writers, and don't favor the big publishers or cherry pick a few best-selling authors at all. In fact, you'd be lucky to get in the door unless you're signed up with a major publisher and distributor: good luck getting your rights back if you don't like the way they are distributing your book.
Imagine if you bought, for example, an HP laptop, and they told you the following: "Congratulations on your new HP laptop! To obtain applications, visit apps.hp.com.
Trouble is, if apps.hp.com offered thousands of apps, with some minimum level of quality control and assurance that they'll run on your hardware, a reduced danger that you'll get clobbered with virii malware or see your machine clogged up with pointless startup services - then a hell of a lot of customers would feel it was a great improvement on the status quo.
The question is, would HP let you register as a developer for pocket money? (How much does it cost to register as an XBox or PS3 developer?)
Code for "day job interrupted vital joke crafting process" I vaguely remember SYS 45056 doing something on a PET, but that was pretty desperate. #55378008 should have been the first one, of course, and "904753" the second (think 7337speek) and something eyewateringly hilarious will undoubtedly come to me for #3 in a couple of days time.
...turning the page over would breach US Patent #65535 "Method and process for static image manipulation by manual substrate reorientation" and probably also the nototiously over-broad US Patents #55378008 "Process for Bi-manual gluteous maximus location" and #45056 "Method for organising mass inebriation events at a beverage fermentation facility".
They do have to follow their own rules, you know...
Now I don't understand where Google comes with this, since as I understand you're allowed to run anything you want on Android.
Chrome is Google's PC/Mac/Linux Browser.
Android is Google's phone OS.
ChromeOS is Google's new idea - its a stripped down Linux-based OS that only runs the Chrome browser. The idea is that you run everything via the "cloud" - if you want to write an app for ChromeOS you write it in AJAX and stick it on a server (which means it will most likely run just as happily on the iPad, Android or a PC running Chrome browser). Of course, Google would prefer you to use Google's cloud apps, and the first thing ChromeOS asks you to do is to sign in to Google - but I haven't heard any suggestion that its going to be locked to that.
At some point this will most likely be true for OS X too - maybe even on the next major version.
Citation needed.
Its not impossible but it would basically equate to Apple walking away from the general-purpose PC market, and conceeding a big chunk of their Mac sales to Windows. Now, selling OS X Apps through iTunes sounds like a logical next step - but lockdown would be a major and very, very risky U-turn.
If Mac sales were flagging, I could imagine Apple dumping the Mac range and switching entirely to "appliances" like the iPod/Pad/Phone - but AFIAK Macs are still gaining market share.
What interests me is that nobody rails against the broadly similar system in the Games Console market (developers need to be licensed; sellers of mod chips get sued to a smoking hole in the ground; if you "jailbreak" your console and it breaks you get to keep both pieces...)
The macbook and iMac will be the next machines to move to a proprietary ARM chipset away from the relatively open X86 platform.
...what on earth has the processor got to do with whether a system is open or not? ARM is supported by Linux and is used in the majority of smartphones and mobile devices - including "open" ones like Android phones and competing "pads". Don't be fooled by the "A4 Custom Chip" thing: since ARM doesn't sell chips but licenses system-on-a-chip component designs on a mix'n'match basis, all ARM implementations are "custom chips". Unless, of course, you have an inside route to Apple and know something we don't about the A4.
Apple cannot stand the fact that the cheapest computer that runs OSX is the Dell Mini 9.
Apple doesn't give a flying fuck about the odd hacker who installs OS X on their Dell Mini, as long as they don't try selling them commercially (sorry, I take it we're just trading bald assertions here, since you're not citing any evidence either).
In other news, ARM do ultra-low power mobile/embedded chips - they haven't designed high performance desktop/high-end laptop chips since some time in the 90s. ARM simply isn't an option for the top end iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. The whole reason Apple shifted to x86 (at great expense) in the first place was that IBM/Freescale weren't producing competetive processors fast enough.
Then there's other factors such as continuing support by developes such as Microsoft and Adobe on which the Mac market relies, and the big selling point that Intel Macs can run Windows via dual-boot or virtualization if needed.
Of course, it is possible that Apple could decide to ditch the "proper" PC market and concentrate on "appliances" - but that would mean handing a large section of its customer base over to Microsoft.
You call them appliances all you want but really they are not appliances (akin to a coffee maker, microwave etc) as they are far more complex.
Apple sells shedloads of kit to consumers because Apple understands that consumers want their music players, phones and web browsers to be as easy to use as coffee makers.
True, we did use the brute force method to get there the first time.
So possibly nothing of value was lost when us.gov decides to shelve the idea of using the same minimally-refined brute force method to get there the second time.
But, by the time we are ready to really go out there again, will we have enough resources left to do it?
So the next reason to go out there is to find resources, not plant flags. Lashings of solar energy, chunks of metal and volatiles just floating around rather than buried miles beneath a crust. Grab it, use the solar energy to turn it into stuff we want then either strap a heat shield on it and drop it or use it to build spaceships...
While Job's focus and control has been critical to their success as a company; the down side is a very tight controlled ecosystem.
Yet the Second Coming of Jobs has also seen the move from the black box that was Mac OS 9 (limited proprietary applescript macros or pay top dollar for a SDK) to the infinitely more tinkerable OS X (posix compliant, includes a shedload of binary & scripting languages, most of the FOSS ecosystem available via MacPorts or Fink). Its under Jobs that Apple started giving away their industrial-strength development tools free. Even the Great Satan iTunes has the decency to mirror most of its metadata in XML so your programs can get at your playlists.
No - Apple just has two distinct ranges of products: closed "iAppliances" which are locked down to protect their core functionality and general-purpose Macs, which aren't locked down.
As much as I would like to see us go back to the moon and to Mars, I think humanity may have missed its window.
Or maybe we just got a bit ahead of ourselves with a mad, unsustainable brute-force dash to the moon: C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.
The next step is to see whether mining the asteroids or the moon is commercially viable. If it is, then once you've got a self-funding industrial infrastructure in space you can start to think about visiting the planets without having to haul every last nut and bolt up from Earth. But that might take time.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. Rules like this probably reflect the difficulty of the issue. And when Microsoft was under scrutiny in the US, they claimed that the "browser is an integral part of the operating system". I.e. they put technical reasons forward.
Except there was a bit of wool-pulling there: the html rendering and http components may have been integral to the OS, but removing the IE "front end" - which is what competes with Firefox, Opera et. al. - is a cinch.
But the decision is artificially constrained by the exclusivity of the deal. It's anti-competitive.
...but that's not a problem with OEM bundling per se. PCs have come with bundled operating systems since the year dot. If a particular OS producer says to PC manufacturers "we won't license our OS to you at a competitive price if you also offer bare PCs or competing OSs" then you're back to antitrust law. (IANAL but I'm pretty sure that's never been legal - the problem is getting it enforced!)
If they ever achieve monopoly, I bet we will see them arguing "MacOS is an integral part of the Apple computer".
Well, it is: Windows minus IE is still Windows; a Mac minus Mac OS is just a generic PC in a designer case.
However, if Apple wanted a Mac monopoly they'd probably have to unbundle somewhere along the line anyway in order to offer a comprehensive range of hardware choices: their current bundling strategy makes perfect sense for a niche premium-priced laptop, SFF & workstation market. Currently, they seem happy there.
There are still major restrictions such as the AppStore.
The AppStore may be restrictive, but its also bootstrapped a largely new arm of the software industry. Its certainly not very Free As In Speech but it seems to have given a lot of small developers easy access to a huge market. Anyway - I see the App store as a temporary measure while mobile internet connections evolve: once you have dependable, always on mobile internet, browser-based "cloud" applications make so much more sense. Currently, if I want to run my own software on an iPhone, the best bet is to write it in AJAX and host it on my home server (which probably means it will work on Android, Palm, Nokia...).
My solution is to use free software (i.e. GNU/Linux, Amarok, Okular, Gwenview, ...). This also allows you to be creative without getting taxed for it (e.g. LaTeX, Gimp, recordmydesktop, VIM, GCC, Ruby, ...).
Until the EU demands that linux distros have a choice screen... "Do you want VIM or EMACS?", "Do you want to use LaTeX, DocBook, nroff...", "OpenOffice or KOffice or ABiword", "Amarok or Rhythmbox", "PHP, Perl or Python..." :-)
(Yes, that's silly for all sorts of reasons, but be careful what you wish for because the EU and the DOJ are not particularly strong on common sense...)
The question is where does the manufacturer's choice stop and where does the customer's choice start.
Don't forget the monopoly/antitrust issue. If you have over 90% of the market, you have to live by different rules.
That's a decision by the individual PC maker - its not impossible to buy a PC without Windows.
Well, it was established in the Psystar case that Apple having a monopoly on Apple computers wasn't an antitrust issue. Meanwhile, Apple even bundle a utility to let you install Windows on your Mac...
The EU already have this in their sights (OK that's from 1996, but so was the browser bundling issue...)
Apple iTunes tying music and books to a certain device
Well, that's history with music, since Apple went over to DRM-free iTunes Plus and Amazon, Play.com etc. started selling DRM-free MP3s (and remember - iPods might not do .ogg but they can play .mp3 and unencrypted .aac from any source).
With books, true, but it needs sorting out for every DRM-encumbered ebook format, not just Apple. My solution: don't buy ebooks until they are (a) DRM-free and (b) somewhat cheaper (esp. for older books).
(has anyone seen competing browsers in the app store?)
Let's see:
Perfect Browser 3
Mercury web browser
Privately - Web browser
Full Browser
Mango Browser
Atomic Web Browser
Show 18 more
Admittedly, they're probably all using the same browser widget from the OS. Also, AFAIK, we've yet to see whether Apple are going to raise any objection to Opera Mini...
Meanwhile, on your Mac, go to Apple Menu, "Mac OS X Software" to get the official Apple software downloads page and Firefox is currently #5 on the "Top Downloads" list. They don't exactly make it difficult...
is completely different from Microsoft
...with over 90% of the desktop OS market...
shipping their browser as part of the OS
...starting back in the day when OSs didn't routinely include web browsers, and a market in third-party web browsers was developing nicely...
and the default browser,
...while telling the antitrust hearings that it was totally impossible to change this...
and permitting the user to install new browsers for the past 14 years.
...a bit like Apple have always done on their computers (the EU ruling isn't about phones), you mean?
You obviously never used on of the original Apple Extended Keyboards, which had a great action on them and were fabulously durable. I kept using one right up until the loss of the ADB port.
I don't have a problem with the action - I have a problem with the key layout on the Apple "UK" keyboards, which gets really annoying if you are using both Macs and PCs.
3) Set forearm on tabletop. Relax muscles in hand so its resting in a slightly cupped position (not flat, that means tensing your muscles). Pick a mouse that fits comfortably in your hand in this position. Discover that you can then adopt the best of methods (1) and (2), using your forearm for large movements and fingers for small movements. Apple mice then either suck or rule depending on the size and shape of your hand.
(And my problem with the hockey puck was that it could get turned around in your hand...)
Actually, it is probably perjury. And that probably is the reason. They might not be able to prove the terrorism charge, but they'll convict you on the perjury charge.
IANAL but I think that to convict you of perjury for saying you weren't a terrorist they'd still have to prove that you were a terrorist.
On the other hand, deporting your arse out of the US (or firing you from your security-cleared job) for lying on a form probably only requires "reasonable suspicion" (the main thing you're doing on those nice green forms is waiving your right to appeal deportation or refusal of entry).
Love their products in general. MacPro and MacBook user myself but I hate their mice and their keyboards. They both have always sucked
This is true.
Missing item from the "worst" list is every Apple UK keyboard ever, which is just a US keyboard with the (#) key replaced by a (£) key, leaving all sorts of punctuation keys in the US positions. Fail.
I think the mouse problem is that you really need to go out and choose a mouse that fits your hand - Apple are constrained to (a) only having one or two models (b) making it one-size-fits-all and ambidextrous and (c) being obliged to make something "different" and "designer-y". Fortunately, for ages now, any PC USB mouse has worked fine, including multiple buttons and scroll wheels.
The scientists of Omicron Persei 8 have decoded the alien disc:
...and were really pissed when it didn't contain the final episode of Single Female Lawyer...
if our disk got there, they can get here and we gave them a freaking map and way to much information about us and our weaknesses.
Why would aliens need to go hunting for a tiny space probe traveling far slower than light, that won't reach them for aeons, when they could just tune into PBS and hear all about us?
Agreed that Flash needs to be replaced, but not with HTML 5.
For general "rich internet application" stuff, moving from proprietary Flash to standards-based HTML5 (+DOM/SVG/ECMAScript) should be good news for open source. The problem is not HTML 5 per se but that the only video codec that seems to be gaining widespread support in HTML 5 is the patent-encumbered H.264.
Newer versions of Flash look like shifting H.264 as the codec for video anyway (albeit with different packaging), so Flash vs. HTML5 is a non-issue on the video front.
ActionScript is ECMAScript
Actually, I think they parted company when ECMAScript 4 was shelved: For one thing, Actionscript 2 and 3 include the extra "syntactic sugar" for a pseudo-class-based syntax, so anybody who learnt AS 2 or 3 first is going to have a nice culture shock switching to propotype-based ECMAScript.
(I feel a great disturbance in the slashdot, as if a billion advocates of prototype-based OOP cried out in anguish and... probably won't ever be silenced :-)
Point is though, as you say, they use a totally different DOM/application framework so the language similarities are partly irrelevant. Come to think about it, my main beef is that Adobe seem determined to introduce a completely new DOM with every release of Flash, not to mention Flex...
At least that's the idea, given that they seem to have abandoned the practice in the last couple years, I gather it was pretty ineffective.
Or maybe its because they're busy replacing checkin staff with "express" check-in consoles...
It is important that MPs/"MLs" must retain public confidence.
That ship has already sailed (on a nicely cleaned moat, nearly colliding with a duck house). The MPs are a laughing stock - being allowed to say "whoops - my bad" and pay them back doesn't really reassure the public much.
And, AFAIK, the CPS/Police investigation (the important one - dealing with the handful of claims that would get us mere mortals thrown in jail) has been running independently for months.
You do understand the difference between one-off costs and recurring costs, don't you?
Yes. Do you?
Fixing the system for the future stops the recurring costs. Those reforms have already been announced. Trying to claw back money from the claims which with hindsight were unreasonable is a one-off cost which always carried a risk of costing more than it recovered.
And you are aware that the police are bringing criminal charges against 4 members of parliament over their expenses which seem to be as a result of this enquiry.
Actually, the police have been investigating these for months. Its actually more likely that the Legg inquiry was waiting on the criminal investigations so they could avoid reporting on the MPs facing charges (which could prejudice the cases).
But no doubt you work for a company that never audits its own employees expenses because the police and taxman will make sure all claims are legitimate and anyway, who knows whether such an audit would recover it's own costs?
Actually, my employers won't pay a bean without a receipt and a justification, and which audits expenses because they are terrified of the taxman. If they started clawing back expenses because they changed their mind on what was allowable there would be a major row.
Worth pointing out perhaps that of the £1.16m spent a significant amount will be clawed back through income taxes,
I suspect that the people involved have rather good accountants and won't pay a brass farthing more in tax than they have to.
Meanwhile, remember that some of that "clawback" money had already been paid back voluntarily while some of it will never get repaid without incurring even more legal costs...
and there's no detail there of how much of that cost is actually incremental rather than an allocation of central costs that were going to be spent anyway.
Unless the staff in question were otherwise sitting around twiddling their thumbs on full salary (oh, and probably phoning lawyers and accountants from time to time for a billable-hours chat about football) that's still 1.2M worth of time and effort expended on job X that can't now be allocated to job Y.
The taxation point, by the by, is quite significant since one of the important points surrounding the excessive claims is that they were not being taxed, often at direct odds with the taxation rules governing you and I.
If you're paying UK income tax on bone fide expenses incurred as part of your job then you should get professional advice because you probably don't need to. If, however, you've avoided paying thousands of pounds of capital gains tax after selling your expenses-funded second home by telling the taxman it was your main residence, then there are some nice people in the Inland Revenue with black briefcases who most definitely are paid by centrally allocated funds to make your life a misery. Likewise, if you submit blatently fraudulent claims its a job for the Boys in Blue. As I said: fix the system for the future, and let the police and the taxmen deal with the small handful of really serious cases.
I can't believe governments are spending so much time and effort going after file sharing.
Don't worry, they still have time to spend £1.2M on an inquiry into expenses that has resulted in £1.1M being clawed back. (Instead of just fixing the gorram system and letting the police and taxmen deal with the handful of really dodgy cases).
The proposed rule itself is pretty inscrutable (as usual, I suppose),
.
But don't worry - we can rely on all those helpful and well-educated airport ground staff to correctly and consistently interpret the law and offer balanced and sensible advice to travelers.
We can also re-assure the check-in person that we haven't got batteries at the same time we're assuring them that our luggage has never left our side (even in the trunk of the bus, or when we left it behind the desk at the hotel while we went for lunch); avoiding asking whether the rules on flammable liquids applies to our bottle of "Jungle Formula" and assuming "has anybody given you anything to carry" only applies to ticking teddy bears and bags of white powder handed over by suspicious-looking johnny foreigners. (Seriously, in the entire history of air travel has anybody actually given the "wrong" answer to those questions?)
No, but then Barnes and Noble isn't the only place you can sell your book. If you don't like their policies, you can also put it up for sale on Amazon, Books-A-Million, any number of local bookstores, and probably even stores like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.
...because major bookstore chains and stores like Walmart are so very well known for being friendly and accommodating to small, independent book producers and self-publishing writers, and don't favor the big publishers or cherry pick a few best-selling authors at all. In fact, you'd be lucky to get in the door unless you're signed up with a major publisher and distributor: good luck getting your rights back if you don't like the way they are distributing your book.
Imagine if you bought, for example, an HP laptop, and they told you the following: "Congratulations on your new HP laptop! To obtain applications, visit apps.hp.com.
Trouble is, if apps.hp.com offered thousands of apps, with some minimum level of quality control and assurance that they'll run on your hardware, a reduced danger that you'll get clobbered with virii malware or see your machine clogged up with pointless startup services - then a hell of a lot of customers would feel it was a great improvement on the status quo.
The question is, would HP let you register as a developer for pocket money? (How much does it cost to register as an XBox or PS3 developer?)
What's 45056?
Code for "day job interrupted vital joke crafting process" I vaguely remember SYS 45056 doing something on a PET, but that was pretty desperate. #55378008 should have been the first one, of course, and "904753" the second (think 7337speek) and something eyewateringly hilarious will undoubtedly come to me for #3 in a couple of days time.
I apologize for the premature joke release.
...turning the page over would breach US Patent #65535 "Method and process for static image manipulation by manual substrate reorientation" and probably also the nototiously over-broad US Patents #55378008 "Process for Bi-manual gluteous maximus location" and #45056 "Method for organising mass inebriation events at a beverage fermentation facility".
They do have to follow their own rules, you know...
Now I don't understand where Google comes with this, since as I understand you're allowed to run anything you want on Android.
Chrome is Google's PC/Mac/Linux Browser.
Android is Google's phone OS.
ChromeOS is Google's new idea - its a stripped down Linux-based OS that only runs the Chrome browser. The idea is that you run everything via the "cloud" - if you want to write an app for ChromeOS you write it in AJAX and stick it on a server (which means it will most likely run just as happily on the iPad, Android or a PC running Chrome browser). Of course, Google would prefer you to use Google's cloud apps, and the first thing ChromeOS asks you to do is to sign in to Google - but I haven't heard any suggestion that its going to be locked to that.
At some point this will most likely be true for OS X too - maybe even on the next major version.
Citation needed.
Its not impossible but it would basically equate to Apple walking away from the general-purpose PC market, and conceeding a big chunk of their Mac sales to Windows. Now, selling OS X Apps through iTunes sounds like a logical next step - but lockdown would be a major and very, very risky U-turn.
If Mac sales were flagging, I could imagine Apple dumping the Mac range and switching entirely to "appliances" like the iPod/Pad/Phone - but AFIAK Macs are still gaining market share.
What interests me is that nobody rails against the broadly similar system in the Games Console market (developers need to be licensed; sellers of mod chips get sued to a smoking hole in the ground; if you "jailbreak" your console and it breaks you get to keep both pieces...)
The macbook and iMac will be the next machines to move to a proprietary ARM chipset away from the relatively open X86 platform.
...what on earth has the processor got to do with whether a system is open or not? ARM is supported by Linux and is used in the majority of smartphones and mobile devices - including "open" ones like Android phones and competing "pads". Don't be fooled by the "A4 Custom Chip" thing: since ARM doesn't sell chips but licenses system-on-a-chip component designs on a mix'n'match basis, all ARM implementations are "custom chips". Unless, of course, you have an inside route to Apple and know something we don't about the A4.
Apple cannot stand the fact that the cheapest computer that runs OSX is the Dell Mini 9.
Apple doesn't give a flying fuck about the odd hacker who installs OS X on their Dell Mini, as long as they don't try selling them commercially (sorry, I take it we're just trading bald assertions here, since you're not citing any evidence either).
In other news, ARM do ultra-low power mobile/embedded chips - they haven't designed high performance desktop/high-end laptop chips since some time in the 90s. ARM simply isn't an option for the top end iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. The whole reason Apple shifted to x86 (at great expense) in the first place was that IBM/Freescale weren't producing competetive processors fast enough.
Then there's other factors such as continuing support by developes such as Microsoft and Adobe on which the Mac market relies, and the big selling point that Intel Macs can run Windows via dual-boot or virtualization if needed.
Of course, it is possible that Apple could decide to ditch the "proper" PC market and concentrate on "appliances" - but that would mean handing a large section of its customer base over to Microsoft.
You call them appliances all you want but really they are not appliances (akin to a coffee maker, microwave etc) as they are far more complex.
Apple sells shedloads of kit to consumers because Apple understands that consumers want their music players, phones and web browsers to be as easy to use as coffee makers.
True, we did use the brute force method to get there the first time.
So possibly nothing of value was lost when us.gov decides to shelve the idea of using the same minimally-refined brute force method to get there the second time.
But, by the time we are ready to really go out there again, will we have enough resources left to do it?
So the next reason to go out there is to find resources, not plant flags. Lashings of solar energy, chunks of metal and volatiles just floating around rather than buried miles beneath a crust. Grab it, use the solar energy to turn it into stuff we want then either strap a heat shield on it and drop it or use it to build spaceships...
While Job's focus and control has been critical to their success as a company; the down side is a very tight controlled ecosystem.
Yet the Second Coming of Jobs has also seen the move from the black box that was Mac OS 9 (limited proprietary applescript macros or pay top dollar for a SDK) to the infinitely more tinkerable OS X (posix compliant, includes a shedload of binary & scripting languages, most of the FOSS ecosystem available via MacPorts or Fink). Its under Jobs that Apple started giving away their industrial-strength development tools free. Even the Great Satan iTunes has the decency to mirror most of its metadata in XML so your programs can get at your playlists.
No - Apple just has two distinct ranges of products: closed "iAppliances" which are locked down to protect their core functionality and general-purpose Macs, which aren't locked down.
As much as I would like to see us go back to the moon and to Mars, I think humanity may have missed its window.
Or maybe we just got a bit ahead of ourselves with a mad, unsustainable brute-force dash to the moon: C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.
The next step is to see whether mining the asteroids or the moon is commercially viable. If it is, then once you've got a self-funding industrial infrastructure in space you can start to think about visiting the planets without having to haul every last nut and bolt up from Earth. But that might take time.