I think you're attributing to some sort of "propaganda effort" the logical consequences of making a film for a U.S. audience: i.e that for the sake of interest a lot of things like the Eastern Front (where the U.S. was only marginally involved and not in combat) are given short shrift, and for the sake of brevity not every event is covered.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out if the average American takes movies as fact
IMO, that's true of pretty much any "technology" these days.
Even something as "simple" as a car--ask your average person about how their car runs and they'll probably be able to tell you that the engine uses gasoline and that's pretty much it. You put the key in the ignition, turn it, and the magical transportation fairies start working.
A big part of this is due to specialization. Most folks have some particular thing that they're good at/focused on. But ask for details about how something works that's outside their area of expertise and you're likely to get an explanation that makes little sense to someone who really knows the answer.
Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with specialization, it's just something to be aware of. And anyway, as long as you get the results you expect, does it really matter how it works? That information is only really "useful" when something goes wrong. Which is all too often, I know:-)
Or shot at any range. Hello, McFly--even a 360 degree view from four 640x480 cameras isn't going to help you identify someone 100 meters off. "Yes, officer. He was shot by this little blob in the lower right corner of the image"--and CSI-like enhancements are right out.
There are various (specious) reasons to purchase something like this, but "avoiding an attack" is just silly. Despite the media's fixation on crime, random attacks are quite rare. Only a really stupid mugger is going to attack some nerd wearing "always on" monitoring gear like this, and anyone with a real wish to do you harm is going to think of a way around it. The possibilities for doing mischief unrecorded are numerous and most of them simple and cheap to implement
And anyway, who wants to have their whole life recorded? Who is going to want to watch 9 hours of video of me sitting at my desk typing? Or an hour of commute time? Or the two hours I spent last night reading a book (Complete Chronicles of Conan--very amusing)? Or the seven hours I was asleep. Aside from some wild narcissists, most of the average person's daily life is utterly without interest.
I think Sony would say that the EULA makes it so. I think a lawyer would/could argue that if they brick your system with an update, they owe you a new one. Unfortunately, you'd never get a lawyer to take this case as the value of a PS3 and "damages" aren't enough to cover one billable hour...
Morally (though that's so gauche to say these days) I think if you buy a product and the company borks it well after the purchase, they owe you a fix or new one. Using the classic/. car analogy, it's like taking your car in for an oil change and when you come to pick it up it's stopped running and they expect you to buy a new one.
I'm pretty sure people would hate Clippy just as much now. Microsoft and just about everyone else misdiagnosed the "Clippy Problem"--the problem wasn't the format (a little animated character) or what they were trying to do (wizards) it was that the software seemed to make its guesses about what you were doing completely at random and then inserted itself in the most annoying way possible. We wouldn't have minded an animated charater/wizard as long as it wasn't popping up like a Vibrant add shouting "I think you're typing a letter! Do you want help with that?"
See this cartoon (youtube) for a perfect example of all that Clippy was.
I think you'd find the loss rate in the Army vanishingly small. The kinds of punishment a cop gets for misplacing a weapon pale beside what they can do to a soldier losing a rifle.
For a good number of years I was the company armorer and ran the company arms room when I was in the Army and we never lost a weapon--because every soldier knows what will happen to him if he loses his rifle, and every sergeant knows what will happen to him if his troop loses it, and so on up the chain.
I doubt any of the DHS employees got more than a wrist-slap
I think they're intentionally misleading you with their statistics. There are only around 200,000 employees in DHS and the vast majority are paper pushers. I'd be surprised if over 10% are actually "agents" in the gun-toting ATF, Border Patrol sense.
The DHS has a total of around 200,000 employees. The number of those who are actually armed (as opposed to sitting on their butts in an air conditioned office in D.C.) is significantly less. In a cursory search, I couldn't turn up any concrete numbers, but I imagine it's safe to say that probably 10% of DHS employees are actually "agents" of some type (Border Patrol, ATF, Air Marshals, etc). So that's 20,000 armed employees.
I don't see a 1% loss rate as "statistically insignificant" when you're talking about firearms lost through negligence.
I think that more likely their unwillingness to support OS X white boxes has to do with their experience with the clones, and the fact that currently their support costs are negligible. If they had to support every random piece of crappy x86 hardware out there, they'd soon be in a world of hurt.
You've completely missed the point that Apple is a hardware company, whereas MS is a software company. Of course MS doesn't try to lock you out of "their devices" since the devices aren't MS's in the first place. You can "install anything you want" on OS X, and there are plenty of other phones that are locked down--heck, my Motorola phones were MORE locked down than any iPhone, since there was no way to install software except OTA.
I was thinking that if you just wanted to browse the Web sitting on the couch, this might be a nice choice. However, I'm not sure that it's worth it at the price they're asking. This in-between size (too small to be a "real" computer, too big to fit in a pocket) might be what prevents wider adoption.
Why is this modded down? Not only is the parent accurate for RMS and the FSF, but for Slashdot as well. Never in the history of mankind have so many complained so loudly while doing so little to make it right.
if freedom can only be preserved by removing choice
George Orwell just called and he wants NewSpeak back. Did you honestly think about that as you were typing it?
This is why I just can't take free software advocates seriously. Yes I use (and support) some free software, but apparently RMS and the FSF have bought into the whole "we had to destroy the village to save it" mentality.
It partly depends on what the iPad is. I don't really think that it's a general purpose computer--though I understand why some people might think that. It's more of a Web/Entertainment appliance--like a Tivo with a browser. You don't expect to run arbitrary code on your DVR (or at least most people don't) and I don't think most people expect to do that with their phone (again, at least most people). As long as people are expecting to get an "appliance" rather than a PC, this could be successful.
It only takes one catastrophic event to change the dynamic from "Nor will I ever be covered to the extent I've paid in. Ever" to "Nor will I ever be pay in to the extent I've been covered. Ever"
About a year ago I was in a motorcycle accident. A simple lay-down that resulted in a broken leg. I was taken to Stanford hospital and put in a cast. The cast wasn't holding the bone in place, so they inserted a plate and screws. A complication arose: compartment syndrome. Five surgeries and two weeks later, I went home. Total bill: $290,000. Total amount I paid: $0.
Maybe, just maybe, in the course of my life I might pay that much in premiums.
Point is, insurance isn't the sucker's bet that a lot of people seem to think.
Wouldn't you say that in most cases malice implies more complexity? For example, it only takes one stupid mistake by a coder to introduce a bug, whereas intentional introduction of flaws for some sort of business purpose supposes a concerted effort by a group?
What's amusing about the issue in the kb is that the problem that they're "solving" by breaking the username/password in a URL standard is NOT a problem with username/password URLs, but a problem with how IE displays the URLs. In other words, rather than fixing the behavior of IE's address and status bars to display such URLs correctly, they just stopped supporting them.
Incompetence at that level isn't just indistinguishable from malice, it IS malicious.
Slashdot Mirror
That's it then, I'm modding you redund.... oh wait, I've posted to this thread. Well, never mind then. Carry on.
So, don't look at porn with remaining good eye then?
I think you're attributing to some sort of "propaganda effort" the logical consequences of making a film for a U.S. audience: i.e that for the sake of interest a lot of things like the Eastern Front (where the U.S. was only marginally involved and not in combat) are given short shrift, and for the sake of brevity not every event is covered.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out if the average American takes movies as fact
IMO, that's true of pretty much any "technology" these days.
Even something as "simple" as a car--ask your average person about how their car runs and they'll probably be able to tell you that the engine uses gasoline and that's pretty much it. You put the key in the ignition, turn it, and the magical transportation fairies start working.
A big part of this is due to specialization. Most folks have some particular thing that they're good at/focused on. But ask for details about how something works that's outside their area of expertise and you're likely to get an explanation that makes little sense to someone who really knows the answer.
Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with specialization, it's just something to be aware of. And anyway, as long as you get the results you expect, does it really matter how it works? That information is only really "useful" when something goes wrong. Which is all too often, I know :-)
No, no no.
The flying car is going to be _powered_ by the cheap, efficient solar cell.
That's why we need an Air Shield.
And set the combination to 1-2-3-4-5!
Or shot at any range. Hello, McFly--even a 360 degree view from four 640x480 cameras isn't going to help you identify someone 100 meters off. "Yes, officer. He was shot by this little blob in the lower right corner of the image"--and CSI-like enhancements are right out.
There are various (specious) reasons to purchase something like this, but "avoiding an attack" is just silly. Despite the media's fixation on crime, random attacks are quite rare. Only a really stupid mugger is going to attack some nerd wearing "always on" monitoring gear like this, and anyone with a real wish to do you harm is going to think of a way around it. The possibilities for doing mischief unrecorded are numerous and most of them simple and cheap to implement
And anyway, who wants to have their whole life recorded? Who is going to want to watch 9 hours of video of me sitting at my desk typing? Or an hour of commute time? Or the two hours I spent last night reading a book (Complete Chronicles of Conan--very amusing)? Or the seven hours I was asleep. Aside from some wild narcissists, most of the average person's daily life is utterly without interest.
Yet another WTF "future" product.
Greeting Asteroids player. You have been recruited by the Star League to fight against Zur and the Kodan UFOs.
I think Sony would say that the EULA makes it so. I think a lawyer would/could argue that if they brick your system with an update, they owe you a new one. Unfortunately, you'd never get a lawyer to take this case as the value of a PS3 and "damages" aren't enough to cover one billable hour...
Morally (though that's so gauche to say these days) I think if you buy a product and the company borks it well after the purchase, they owe you a fix or new one. Using the classic /. car analogy, it's like taking your car in for an oil change and when you come to pick it up it's stopped running and they expect you to buy a new one.
Well, there's spam, egg, sausage, Obama, and ham, that's not got much ham or Communism in it.
I'm pretty sure people would hate Clippy just as much now. Microsoft and just about everyone else misdiagnosed the "Clippy Problem"--the problem wasn't the format (a little animated character) or what they were trying to do (wizards) it was that the software seemed to make its guesses about what you were doing completely at random and then inserted itself in the most annoying way possible. We wouldn't have minded an animated charater/wizard as long as it wasn't popping up like a Vibrant add shouting "I think you're typing a letter! Do you want help with that?"
See this cartoon (youtube) for a perfect example of all that Clippy was.
Cue tech in scuba gear swimming down through the oil to change a power supply.
I think you'd find the loss rate in the Army vanishingly small. The kinds of punishment a cop gets for misplacing a weapon pale beside what they can do to a soldier losing a rifle.
For a good number of years I was the company armorer and ran the company arms room when I was in the Army and we never lost a weapon--because every soldier knows what will happen to him if he loses his rifle, and every sergeant knows what will happen to him if his troop loses it, and so on up the chain.
I doubt any of the DHS employees got more than a wrist-slap
I think they're intentionally misleading you with their statistics. There are only around 200,000 employees in DHS and the vast majority are paper pushers. I'd be surprised if over 10% are actually "agents" in the gun-toting ATF, Border Patrol sense.
The DHS has a total of around 200,000 employees. The number of those who are actually armed (as opposed to sitting on their butts in an air conditioned office in D.C.) is significantly less. In a cursory search, I couldn't turn up any concrete numbers, but I imagine it's safe to say that probably 10% of DHS employees are actually "agents" of some type (Border Patrol, ATF, Air Marshals, etc). So that's 20,000 armed employees.
I don't see a 1% loss rate as "statistically insignificant" when you're talking about firearms lost through negligence.
I think that more likely their unwillingness to support OS X white boxes has to do with their experience with the clones, and the fact that currently their support costs are negligible. If they had to support every random piece of crappy x86 hardware out there, they'd soon be in a world of hurt.
I don't think it's possible to "optimize" a Skoda. :-)
You've completely missed the point that Apple is a hardware company, whereas MS is a software company. Of course MS doesn't try to lock you out of "their devices" since the devices aren't MS's in the first place. You can "install anything you want" on OS X, and there are plenty of other phones that are locked down--heck, my Motorola phones were MORE locked down than any iPhone, since there was no way to install software except OTA.
How's the weather up there in Redmond, anyway?
I was thinking that if you just wanted to browse the Web sitting on the couch, this might be a nice choice. However, I'm not sure that it's worth it at the price they're asking. This in-between size (too small to be a "real" computer, too big to fit in a pocket) might be what prevents wider adoption.
Why is this modded down? Not only is the parent accurate for RMS and the FSF, but for Slashdot as well. Never in the history of mankind have so many complained so loudly while doing so little to make it right.
if freedom can only be preserved by removing choice
George Orwell just called and he wants NewSpeak back. Did you honestly think about that as you were typing it?
This is why I just can't take free software advocates seriously. Yes I use (and support) some free software, but apparently RMS and the FSF have bought into the whole "we had to destroy the village to save it" mentality.
It partly depends on what the iPad is. I don't really think that it's a general purpose computer--though I understand why some people might think that. It's more of a Web/Entertainment appliance--like a Tivo with a browser. You don't expect to run arbitrary code on your DVR (or at least most people don't) and I don't think most people expect to do that with their phone (again, at least most people). As long as people are expecting to get an "appliance" rather than a PC, this could be successful.
Regarding that last statement...
It only takes one catastrophic event to change the dynamic from "Nor will I ever be covered to the extent I've paid in. Ever" to "Nor will I ever be pay in to the extent I've been covered. Ever"
About a year ago I was in a motorcycle accident. A simple lay-down that resulted in a broken leg. I was taken to Stanford hospital and put in a cast. The cast wasn't holding the bone in place, so they inserted a plate and screws. A complication arose: compartment syndrome. Five surgeries and two weeks later, I went home. Total bill: $290,000. Total amount I paid: $0.
Maybe, just maybe, in the course of my life I might pay that much in premiums.
Point is, insurance isn't the sucker's bet that a lot of people seem to think.
For the sake of argument...
Wouldn't you say that in most cases malice implies more complexity? For example, it only takes one stupid mistake by a coder to introduce a bug, whereas intentional introduction of flaws for some sort of business purpose supposes a concerted effort by a group?
Just asking :-)
What's amusing about the issue in the kb is that the problem that they're "solving" by breaking the username/password in a URL standard is NOT a problem with username/password URLs, but a problem with how IE displays the URLs. In other words, rather than fixing the behavior of IE's address and status bars to display such URLs correctly, they just stopped supporting them.
Incompetence at that level isn't just indistinguishable from malice, it IS malicious.