I don't think that Apple is willing to sell products with "no support"--which is kind of the point of their beef with Psytar. There are various reasons for this, ranging from Apple's brush with death during the clone period to their almost fanatical devotion to providing a "complete" user experience--something that would be impossible if they allowed random combinations of hardware and software. Let's face it, a lot of Apple's "just works" cred comes from the fact that they're in complete control of the hardware the OS runs on.
I just don't see them being willing to give that up.
Unfortunately, "loser pays" isn't really a sufficient defense against bad litigators who are corporations. Because unlike your average citizen, they have lawyers either on staff or on retainer, so their upfront legal costs are nothing. Even when the citizen wins, they only have to pay the fees for a lawyer that he/she could afford, which makes the whole thing an exercise in cost/benefit calculation, heavily weighted towards litigation.
On top of this, the individual not only has to pay their lawyer up front, but even if they win they are out a significant amount of time (and who knows, they may lose their job if they miss too much work) and seemingly endless frustration.
In my opinion the best solution for this is to provide some sort of "pain and suffering" award in cases where a company sues an individual, pushing the weight of the cost/benefit calculation firmly in the direction of not litigating in cases like this.
This is why I personally don't "rent" anything. I don't "rent" music and I won't "rent" books, either. I do buy both (electronic copies of both books and music) but I'm not paying for something with DRM where when the distributor goes out of business I'm hosed. And I generally won't pay the physical media price for something that I'm only getting an electronic copy of.
Google and Amazon can get back to me when they offer DRM-less books, readable on the device of my choice, able to be backed up by me to a local drive, that cannot be "disabled" or "rescinded" by them and where they're still accessible even if Google and Amazon go out of business. Until then, I'll be killing trees and "buying my bits" elsewhere
And stop referring my phone to a "mobile" version automatically with no opt out. What's currently driving me crazy is not Flash (I avoid those sites anyway) but being forced into a mobile (read: limited) version of the full site when my phone is perfectly capable of rendering all the images, menus, etc.
The "dumbed down" version should be an option--maybe even the default option--but quit using my user agent string to force me into the mobile site ghetto.
And this is exactly why I can't take any of this seriously.
Someone claims there's an issue. Anyone who says otherwise (or points out that it's all anecdotes and no statistics) must either be 1) in denial or 2) a sexist pig
Offhand, I can think of at least four or five other possibilities.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: never expect someone with a different area of specialization to know what you know about your specialty.
It's pretty easy to call this guy "chock full of stupid" because he almost made this mistake, but it's a mistake that thousands of other non-specialists make every day. And we're not talking about trailer-park dwellers married to their cousins--PhDs, research scientists, captains of industry... lots of folks whose main interest isn't computers fall for these scams all the time. My guess is that quite a few of those folks have a higher IQ than you or me.
Do you suppose that if you failed to correctly run a criminal investigation it would be fair to call you "chock full of stupid"?
Sadly true. I keep hoping that we're going to reach the point where more people in positions of responsibility are in the age group that grew up with computers and know things like "don't open random attachments" or "don't download random crap"--but we're clearly not there yet. And it's always possible that since there are a lot of people even in that age group who are going to know just enough to be dangerous. You could probably bring down our entire government by sending malware to the email accounts of our legislators with a subject line of "<Lobbyist> Proposing Junket to the Caribbean" and a "Click here" button.
It's interesting that the head of the FBI is just cluefull enough to know that he's uninformed. But at least he isn't spouting off about how email travels across the Internet, which is a series of tubes.
Plus, when your significant other's eyes get big, she draws in a breath as if to scream, and her knuckles turn white on the door handle, it's a good indicator that you need to look up and pay attention to the fact that you've just crossed the yellow lines.
I always admired Heinlein's system from The Number of the Beast--you tie the driver down in the road, run over their head with a car, and then use a stopwatch to make them wait for medical help exactly the same amount of time that the victim waited.
The order is about using cellphones (personal or government) while driving a government car. What you do with your phone, in your car, doesn't come into it.
And I really don't see how this new law is going to prevent that. You can't legislate against ignorance/stupidity. If little Johnny Rotten is using P2P software and it asks him which directory to share and he says c:, I don't think that this law is going to help John Sr. get his SSN back in the bottle.
I'm tempted to wonder if there isn't some ulterior motive here... like since you can't prevent this kind of stupidity, maybe it's a stealth move to outlaw all P2P? Of course, you should never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity:-)
Yep. I was going to comment that I have a 10" piece of titanium in my leg from a motorcycle accident, and at my 1-year followup appointment, there was no talk of removing it. I believe that these days they tend to leave the hardware in unless it's causing problems.
I drive a 1800 cc motorcycle, which is faster than a C4 Corvette, as fuel efficient as a Prius IRL (around 40-45 MPG), hella fun to ride, AND I can take the carpool lane:-)
The problem is that everyone seems to think "Oh, I'll switch to electric, because petrol is so heavily taxed" but you're forgetting that once everyone switches to electric, they're going to have to find another tax to pay for all the road funds... which I predict will be a tax on either electricity or directly on your vehicle. Plus, cars containing a battery and electric motors are pretty much always going to have a significant cost premium over those running on internal combustion.
That's not saying we won't all make the switch eventually. But thinking that long-term you're "saving money" is probably not the best bet. Sell it on how "green" it is, or reducing dependency on foreign oil is a better (and more accurate) pitch.
For bonus points, mix laundry detergent (the dry kind) with the petrol before creating your device. It reduces the viscosity and makes it much "stickier"
There are lots of reasons to prefer real books, some of which are commented on elsewhere in this discussion: margin notes, dog ears, etc.
For me, one of the biggest things is that I have a "spatial awareness" of books that's impossible (for me) with e-texts. If I remember something I read that I want to find again, I know about where in the book it was based on what percentage of pages was in each hand--and I flip to a position relatively close to that and start looking through pages for it. This is especially useful for me since I can often remember the gist of the material I'm looking for but not accurately enough to create a meaningful text search. But I have a pretty intuitive feel for the location of what I'm looking for in the physical book.
It's this very "tactile"/physical interaction that makes paper books seem superior, to me.
When you download an app, the phone asks for your iTunes password. It isn't just a "one click and you're done" thing like the GP posted. Or maybe it's the way I have my phone configured?
But more to the point: I think your quote from the GP didn't correctly communicate the value he's commenting on. Sure any developer can set up a WinMo app store and collect CC info. But how many users are going to be willing to pass their CC information to "JoesFlyByNightApps.com"? And how many iTunes users have already given this info to Apple?
I think the real value to users is that 1) apps (and reviews) are centrally located--I don't have to google "tip calculator" and then try and sift through n million hits 2) Apple is a trusted source of apps, so I'm not worried about malware, and 3) Apple is trusted enough that users are willing to share their CC info, unlike some random developer's site.
Of course "value for users" is a completely separate question from "value for developers"--the trade offs between the inconvenience of the "walled garden", paying the associated developer fees, and having to jump through the approval hoops have to be weighed against Apple handle the hosting, billing, and so forth.
Think about this: when a reporter covers an area that you're an expert in, how much do they get wrong? For instance, if you know a lot about computers, how often do you hear a reporter completely misrepresent something or get some key fact exactly backwards? Now extrapolate that to EVERY area of expertise (except possibly sports) and determine how reliable journalism is. Unless there's a video of the actual event (and I mean a video as it happens, not Bob from the Washington Bureau shaking his head as the ambulances drive away) you can pretty much count on getting half the facts, badly distorted, and intentionally slanted to fit the reporter's (or their editor's) bias.
News has ALWAYS been this way--it's just that you're noticing it more. About 35 years ago I had an article written about me in the local paper. It was filled with "direct quotes" of things that I never said, contained about six factual errors in two paragraphs, and was essentially completely divorced from the reality of what had happened.
Slashdot Mirror
Two dupes. On slashdot you will see two dupes: "this story has been posted before", "this post has been posted before", and "dupe!"
Among the many dupes you will see on slashdot...
I don't think that Apple is willing to sell products with "no support"--which is kind of the point of their beef with Psytar. There are various reasons for this, ranging from Apple's brush with death during the clone period to their almost fanatical devotion to providing a "complete" user experience--something that would be impossible if they allowed random combinations of hardware and software. Let's face it, a lot of Apple's "just works" cred comes from the fact that they're in complete control of the hardware the OS runs on.
I just don't see them being willing to give that up.
There is something to be said for sweet sweet silence.
I think you mean: There is something to be said for sweet sweet reason
Unfortunately, "loser pays" isn't really a sufficient defense against bad litigators who are corporations. Because unlike your average citizen, they have lawyers either on staff or on retainer, so their upfront legal costs are nothing. Even when the citizen wins, they only have to pay the fees for a lawyer that he/she could afford, which makes the whole thing an exercise in cost/benefit calculation, heavily weighted towards litigation.
On top of this, the individual not only has to pay their lawyer up front, but even if they win they are out a significant amount of time (and who knows, they may lose their job if they miss too much work) and seemingly endless frustration.
In my opinion the best solution for this is to provide some sort of "pain and suffering" award in cases where a company sues an individual, pushing the weight of the cost/benefit calculation firmly in the direction of not litigating in cases like this.
This is why I personally don't "rent" anything. I don't "rent" music and I won't "rent" books, either. I do buy both (electronic copies of both books and music) but I'm not paying for something with DRM where when the distributor goes out of business I'm hosed. And I generally won't pay the physical media price for something that I'm only getting an electronic copy of.
Google and Amazon can get back to me when they offer DRM-less books, readable on the device of my choice, able to be backed up by me to a local drive, that cannot be "disabled" or "rescinded" by them and where they're still accessible even if Google and Amazon go out of business. Until then, I'll be killing trees and "buying my bits" elsewhere
And stop referring my phone to a "mobile" version automatically with no opt out. What's currently driving me crazy is not Flash (I avoid those sites anyway) but being forced into a mobile (read: limited) version of the full site when my phone is perfectly capable of rendering all the images, menus, etc.
The "dumbed down" version should be an option--maybe even the default option--but quit using my user agent string to force me into the mobile site ghetto.
It's not a problem. You don't need electronic encryption to protect your data--just type it in using a one-time pad and you're golden.
And this is exactly why I can't take any of this seriously.
Someone claims there's an issue. Anyone who says otherwise (or points out that it's all anecdotes and no statistics) must either be 1) in denial or 2) a sexist pig
Offhand, I can think of at least four or five other possibilities.
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: never expect someone with a different area of specialization to know what you know about your specialty.
It's pretty easy to call this guy "chock full of stupid" because he almost made this mistake, but it's a mistake that thousands of other non-specialists make every day. And we're not talking about trailer-park dwellers married to their cousins--PhDs, research scientists, captains of industry... lots of folks whose main interest isn't computers fall for these scams all the time. My guess is that quite a few of those folks have a higher IQ than you or me.
Do you suppose that if you failed to correctly run a criminal investigation it would be fair to call you "chock full of stupid"?
Sadly true. I keep hoping that we're going to reach the point where more people in positions of responsibility are in the age group that grew up with computers and know things like "don't open random attachments" or "don't download random crap"--but we're clearly not there yet. And it's always possible that since there are a lot of people even in that age group who are going to know just enough to be dangerous. You could probably bring down our entire government by sending malware to the email accounts of our legislators with a subject line of "<Lobbyist> Proposing Junket to the Caribbean" and a "Click here" button.
It's interesting that the head of the FBI is just cluefull enough to know that he's uninformed. But at least he isn't spouting off about how email travels across the Internet, which is a series of tubes.
Plus, when your significant other's eyes get big, she draws in a breath as if to scream, and her knuckles turn white on the door handle, it's a good indicator that you need to look up and pay attention to the fact that you've just crossed the yellow lines.
How do you say "sorry"?
I always admired Heinlein's system from The Number of the Beast--you tie the driver down in the road, run over their head with a car, and then use a stopwatch to make them wait for medical help exactly the same amount of time that the victim waited.
You can't even ban stupid actions, you can merely punish stupidity.
Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain.
No.
The order is about using cellphones (personal or government) while driving a government car. What you do with your phone, in your car, doesn't come into it.
I'm not sure about that. I had a couple of Creative sound cards long before Blu-Ray disks came out, and they were pretty useless even way back then
Wait, what about computers I did win?
And I really don't see how this new law is going to prevent that. You can't legislate against ignorance/stupidity. If little Johnny Rotten is using P2P software and it asks him which directory to share and he says c:, I don't think that this law is going to help John Sr. get his SSN back in the bottle.
I'm tempted to wonder if there isn't some ulterior motive here... like since you can't prevent this kind of stupidity, maybe it's a stealth move to outlaw all P2P? Of course, you should never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity :-)
Yep. I was going to comment that I have a 10" piece of titanium in my leg from a motorcycle accident, and at my 1-year followup appointment, there was no talk of removing it. I believe that these days they tend to leave the hardware in unless it's causing problems.
Don't ask, don't tell!
Bahhh--you and your Prius.
I drive a 1800 cc motorcycle, which is faster than a C4 Corvette, as fuel efficient as a Prius IRL (around 40-45 MPG), hella fun to ride, AND I can take the carpool lane :-)
The problem is that everyone seems to think "Oh, I'll switch to electric, because petrol is so heavily taxed" but you're forgetting that once everyone switches to electric, they're going to have to find another tax to pay for all the road funds... which I predict will be a tax on either electricity or directly on your vehicle. Plus, cars containing a battery and electric motors are pretty much always going to have a significant cost premium over those running on internal combustion.
That's not saying we won't all make the switch eventually. But thinking that long-term you're "saving money" is probably not the best bet. Sell it on how "green" it is, or reducing dependency on foreign oil is a better (and more accurate) pitch.
For bonus points, mix laundry detergent (the dry kind) with the petrol before creating your device. It reduces the viscosity and makes it much "stickier"
There are lots of reasons to prefer real books, some of which are commented on elsewhere in this discussion: margin notes, dog ears, etc.
For me, one of the biggest things is that I have a "spatial awareness" of books that's impossible (for me) with e-texts. If I remember something I read that I want to find again, I know about where in the book it was based on what percentage of pages was in each hand--and I flip to a position relatively close to that and start looking through pages for it. This is especially useful for me since I can often remember the gist of the material I'm looking for but not accurately enough to create a meaningful text search. But I have a pretty intuitive feel for the location of what I'm looking for in the physical book.
It's this very "tactile"/physical interaction that makes paper books seem superior, to me.
Well, for one thing, it's not accurate.
When you download an app, the phone asks for your iTunes password. It isn't just a "one click and you're done" thing like the GP posted. Or maybe it's the way I have my phone configured?
But more to the point: I think your quote from the GP didn't correctly communicate the value he's commenting on. Sure any developer can set up a WinMo app store and collect CC info. But how many users are going to be willing to pass their CC information to "JoesFlyByNightApps.com"? And how many iTunes users have already given this info to Apple?
I think the real value to users is that 1) apps (and reviews) are centrally located--I don't have to google "tip calculator" and then try and sift through n million hits 2) Apple is a trusted source of apps, so I'm not worried about malware, and 3) Apple is trusted enough that users are willing to share their CC info, unlike some random developer's site.
Of course "value for users" is a completely separate question from "value for developers"--the trade offs between the inconvenience of the "walled garden", paying the associated developer fees, and having to jump through the approval hoops have to be weighed against Apple handle the hosting, billing, and so forth.
Think about this: when a reporter covers an area that you're an expert in, how much do they get wrong? For instance, if you know a lot about computers, how often do you hear a reporter completely misrepresent something or get some key fact exactly backwards? Now extrapolate that to EVERY area of expertise (except possibly sports) and determine how reliable journalism is. Unless there's a video of the actual event (and I mean a video as it happens, not Bob from the Washington Bureau shaking his head as the ambulances drive away) you can pretty much count on getting half the facts, badly distorted, and intentionally slanted to fit the reporter's (or their editor's) bias.
News has ALWAYS been this way--it's just that you're noticing it more. About 35 years ago I had an article written about me in the local paper. It was filled with "direct quotes" of things that I never said, contained about six factual errors in two paragraphs, and was essentially completely divorced from the reality of what had happened.