There's an easy solution to that which involves neither GPS tracking nor micromanagement.
Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time. Now they have an incentive to be more productive that doesn't require tagging them like cattle and any expenses associated with that. The recipients of the deliveries have no incentive to help the drivers cheat this system, since that would mean failing to receive their items.
Not so easy. You think your solution hasn't been tried before / exist now? All it leads to is drivers taking uppers to stay awake and drive hours past when they should be taking a break, as well as encouraging them to speed.
It's conducive to the discussion if, before posting, you note that someone else has already raised this very same objection (32 minutes before you posted this) and that I have already addressed it with a proposed solution. The already-stated objection and my response to it are in the very same thread.
They're already subjected to so much tracking, Cops ticket them first and only, they can't talk on cell phones now you want to automate them pushing one single button because you feel you can't trust them just that much?
I think you fail to appreciate the sequence of events here. There's every reason to trust them, up until you find hard data showing that they have been overcharging. That is what happened. At this point, it's quite reasonable to want some verification. Automation isn't necessary either. All you need is a clear, unambiguous on/off indicator to let the customer know whether the out-of-town rate in question is being applied. Why wouldn't you want that to be done openly?
Hell all the cabs now have a computer with screen that shows you exactly what your being charged for with instructions the second you sit in the seat detailing all the fairs. You get cheated I say it's your own fault.
As long as this system makes it easy to unambiguously determine, at a glance, whether or not the out-of-town rate is being applied, then yeah that's rather silly of the passenger not to take notice. It'd be your standard failure to perform due diligence. If such systems are already in place and are already a standard feature, then the next step would be to determine why so many customers have been unaware of the information they are intended to provide.
Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time.
With that you get drivers rushing through their deliveries or trying to squeeze in an extra one or two runs per day. That's great and all and everyone wins, right? Until a driver that's taking drugs for alertness has a heart attack or one that doesn't falls asleep at the wheel. Cargo gets manhandled, customers get lousy service from cranky and rushed drivers, and the equipment takes a lot of abuse. The DEA starts sniffing around the employee lockers and trucks, insurance companies, workman's comp. adjusters, and lawsuit happy attorneys circle nearby.
The other suggestions (the LED one) I'm in favor of. Let the customer know he's (possibly) being cheated, and they can work it out from there.
It seems to me you could avoid that by defining a maximum safe/realistic number of deliveries to be made during any one timespan. You could derive such a figure by averaging the number of deliveries made by the top 5-10% highest-performing drivers who have had no at-fault accidents and no customer complaints about quality. Then add a margin to that of around 25% or so and you get your maximum permitted number. This would be easy enough for the company to control since the drivers have no cargo that it did not give them and this is the case whether they are employees or contractors.
I still don't see where this is such a complex problem that GPS tracking is the only possible solution, or even a good solution.
For example- truck drivers used to be expected to make 8 stops and were paid 8x dollars.
Once GPS came in, suddenly they are being expected to make 11 stops (because the gps showed they were sitting around for 20 minutes) and work 100% while on. But the pay is still 8x dollars.
There's an easy solution to that which involves neither GPS tracking nor micromanagement.
Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time. Now they have an incentive to be more productive that doesn't require tagging them like cattle and any expenses associated with that. The recipients of the deliveries have no incentive to help the drivers cheat this system, since that would mean failing to receive their items.
I wonder if there is a correlation between how much the out of town rate was activated and how slow a day the driver was having?
Our drivers in Houston are certainly not retiring wealthy (unlike some of our police sergeants). Cab driving should provide a decent living and with government intervention in rates, that can be tricky at times.
The most robust solution to this is presented in the summary. Have some unambiguous indicator that allows the paying passenger to see whether the out-of-town rate is being applied. It could be as simple as a bright LED with a label saying "When light is on, out-of-town rates are being applied" that is tied to the driver's rate switch. This would guard against both deliberate deception and honest mistakes and would represent full disclosure to the customer.
The idea of using GPS to monitor everyone's whereabouts and track their activities is both unnecessary and needlessly complex. Simpler, more robust solutions can be implemented that come with none of the privacy concerns. Not only is a centralized GPS database a tempting target for attackers who would compromise it, it's also a single point of failure if such a compromise does occur. That's undesirable in a system used to keep people honest. It'd be far more difficult to obtain physical access to every cab in NYC and disable the physical indicator of which rate is being applied.
To me it suggests that older drivers are having more difficulty coping with the situation once it arises.
Forbes says that the guy who got himself plastered all over cable last week was 'afraid' to put the vehicle into neutral, or to turn off the engine:
That part is strange. Uncontrolled acceleration is a much greater risk to life and limb than the red-lined/blown engine you might get if it were put into neutral with the throttle wide open. Being "afraid to try neutral" makes no sense.
They link the 911 recording
Just an irrelevant side note: I've always found it low-class and tacky that phone calls made to 911 become publically available, especially when you hear them on the news. The message is, "hey sir or madam, remember that moment when you were highly emotional and had no idea if you were going to live or die? Well, we've got great news! That highly personal moment of reflection on your own mortality is now a public spectacle for millions of people! It's okay, we make a profit from this! No we won't share that profit with you..."
I realize it's a government service funded by taxpayer dollars. That explains how this is possible. It fails to explain how this is the best or most honorable thing to do.
So apparently being an idiot is also a likely factor in the failing to cope with the incident before it becomes lethal.
That part generally shouldn't be a surprise. I'd imagine it also helps if you can keep calm and avoid panicking, as panicky people often fail at things they could do easily if they were not in a state of deer-in-headlights fear.
But they key observation is that the higher number of fatalities among older drivers doesn't really point to the source of the problem being driver error (rather, the driver error is in failing to deal with the situation once it arises).
Nor does it explain why older drivers were disproportionately affected. Possibly the Toyota brand is more popular among older drivers because it historically has retained a decent resale value. While nothing the driver does should ever cause this kind of uncontrollable automatic acceleration, perhaps older drivers tend to have habits that somehow manifest whatever the actual underlying problem is. There are a lot of coincidences and correlations being pointed out in this discussion but unfortunately there seems to be little certainty about whether they are more than that.
[Some action] doesn't do you any good, so stop it.
Since when did that ever prevent anyone from doing anything? You must have us confused with some society that generally considers the full implications and long-term repercussions of our decisions...
Your UID has only one non-7 digit in it, and it's a 6. That's kinda cool. hehe.
You're actually not the first to notice that. I have thought before that it'd be interesting for me to study the numerology and see if there is a deeper significance to that, since the next free UID Slashdot had available when I created this account is otherwise a "random" event beyond my control.
Good point. I am not saying it's good that EMI is getting sued. I just don't like the somewhat hypocritical Slashdot standards for what artists should do. On one hand, they shouldn't care that music is getting downloaded illegally (talk about non-complete-albums...); on the other hand, PF should care about artistic integrity by trying to prevent people from buying their music unless they buy the entire album. To me, that doesn't make sense.
I think this could be compared to authors of GPL software. When a programmer releases software licensed by the GPL, it is both understood and legally honored that if you want to use the software, you must abide by the terms of the license. I do see a great deal of advocacy for the GPL on this site, but I generally don't see anyone here trying to tell authors of commercial software that it's morally wrong to use a closed license. Here, I draw a distinction between trying to persuade a developer that the GPL has merit versus trying to pressure a developer to take actions that he or she doesn't want to take. The normal response to software released under a license you dislike is to not use that software and find a more suitable alternative. I don't see much hypocrisy in that, really.
This may be an uninformed opinion, and I'll state that up-front: if maximum sales were Pink Floyd's only goal, this would be better realized by selling every possible arrangement of songs/albums. They are making a decision which could cost them some sales from customers who are only interested in select songs and don't want to pay for the whole album. They're doing this because of how they intend for their music to be enjoyed. I think this is indeed an example of artistic integrity because they stand to make more money if they didn't do this.
In general, I agree with you. I don't think what PF is doing is evil. I think it should be up to them what they do with their music. The problem I have is with the general Slashdot thing of not allowing even artists to do what they want with their own creations (whether that's with DRM, licensing, copyrights, or whatever)... unless it's in an incident like this, in which case we clearly root for Pink Floyd. Me? I support PF being able to do what they want with their music. Even if that includes DRM and copyrights. Is DRM a good thing? I dunno. But I think PF should be allowed to do it if they want to. And they should be allowed to sell it the way they want to, or not allow it to be sold in ways they don't want, etc. (especially if it is in their contract...).
Most of the really good arguments about DRM are not based on whether the artist should or should not have the freedom to decide whether to use it. Most of the really good arguments are based on the fact that it just plain fails to accomplish its intended goals, and tends to lead to a situation where those who pirate the work have an experience superior to those who pay for the work. I personally agree with those arguments. Thus, I wouldn't try to petition Pink Floyd to not use DRM. I would consider it a shortsighted mistake if they did use it, however.
There are certainly exceptions, but most of the time it's not the artists who want DRM and other overbearing or unreasonable restrictions. It's usually the publishers. One reason to root for Pink Floyd here is that labels are known for taking a majority of the profits from album sales and generally using their finances and clout to push around the artists without whom they'd be out of b
Dude, I get massive amounts of mod points here all the time, and I'm a fuckin' idiot. What's your point?
Real idiots don't know that they are idiots and they generally proceed to make decisions as though they were infallible. Then when something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault or due to "luck" and circumstance but is certainly never attributed to their own poor decision-making. The humble gesture you just made strongly implies that you're not such an idiot, if I may say so.
The only way copyright law would have any bearing is if you're suggesting the copyright on these songs should have expired by now. That may be fair, but then, EMI is WORSE OFF, because then ANYONE can sell these same songs, for the mere cost of distribution, and EMI loses out on any chance of making ANY money on them (because someone else will always have it available cheaper).
That's precisely what I was suggesting. That it was "the only way" was not a chance or accident but an integral part of my comment (frankly your "objection" is little more than an assumption without indication that I would overlook something so obvious). Remember that the original period of copyright was twelve years, and this was when the most sophisticated method of music distribution was the phonograph (if it was even widely available back then). Despite the fact that you can produce and distribute (i.e. sell) far more copies in twelve years now than you could back then, copyright has had ridiculously long extensions applied to it because these monied interests are never satisfied. Enough is never enough for them.
I would speculate that one can make money selling copies of public-domain works. I think it would be similar to (though not exactly like) the way you can make money selling copies of Linux installation CDs. In such cases, the customer is not paying for a license to the intangible work, but for someone to provide a physical copy of it. The business would be based on the cost to place such works onto a physical medium and distribute them plus a reasonable profit. It just wouldn't be the exclusive big-money deal that the likes of EMI would prefer, but the whole point of copyright is that this provides an incentive to produce more works. Not only is that a good thing, it's also a basic part of the concept.
I'm not a lawyer but I don't think that contract would be valid if this were, say, a public-domain work. Even if that's only because a public-domain work might fail to meet the requirements for "consideration" in a contract because it's obtainable for free by anyone and so has a monetary value of zero. So I don't think this is so easy to separate from copyright, though I'd be happy to have a lawyer correct what is admittedly my armchair guesswork.
That Slashdot will generally back up PF in this, because they are standing up to the evil record label.
Which seems to be somewhat contradictory to the general opinion that record labels (and/or artists? information wants to be free? evil copyright?) should not be allowed to have such tight control over how things are sold.
This is rather one-dimensional thinking that doesn't account for the message this sends. This is an instance of that tight control having negative repercussions for the very people who advocate that control and continue to want more of it. Generally the record labels push for stricter copyright because they see that as something that could only benefit them. In that manner they are exercising the same type of short-term, one-dimensional thinking. That's why they have not heretofore been concerned about the negative consequences to their customers and to society, because those are "collateral damage" and "acceptable losses" until it happens to them personally.
Now that they are taking some of that collateral damage, they might realize that they are not completely exempt from the downsides of authoritarian copyright law. This incident alone probably won't change much, but more examples like this might make them reconsider whether lobbying for even more restrictions is such a good idea. Generally the people who run these corporations are egotistic, childish, and rather unevolved, as evidenced by their total lack of concern for the harm caused by increasingly unjust and exploitative laws that they try so hard to purchase. All they want to do is "look out for number one" and maximize their own gains. That's why arguments about the greater good of society, the purpose of copyright, and the notion of balance between the public domain and the temporary monopoly of copyright are lost upon them. The reality that their own favorite policies might cost them money is one of the only things that could change their attitude.
So here's a record label making it EASIER to get tracks and we're upset about it, because PinkFloyd wants to only sell complete albums. I guess that's their artistic license... but aren't they being evil and putting strict terms on how you acquire their music? I've heard plenty of arguments how that shouldn't be allowed, it's not fair, etc., unless you're talking about physical media. And PF is now suing over distribution of non-physical media...
Personally I think calling this "evil" is an example of melodrama. Having said that, if this is indeed "evil", then the record companies are getting some firsthand exposure to why that might be the case. They are getting to lay in the bed that they thought they were making only for others. This is one of the only things that might make a few monied interests seriously listen to arguments that there might be something wrong with such strict control.
And in my opinion/guess, Slashdot is going to generally be contradicting themselves, upholding a "non-freedom" position (PF's) because it happens to be against what the record label wants.
The record company is getting exactly what it wanted: strict control. They just made the mistake of believing that only they would get to exercise such control. The only question now is whether they will realize the nature of their mistake and how their own actions led up to it. There's nothing contradictory about recognizing this.
If PF wanted it to be listened to as a whole, then make it one track. Or make it movements, like symphonies... etc. For that matter, think of all the symphonies that are sold by movement. Separately...:)
They're doing what they believe is best, just as you would do what you believe is best if you were to produce an album or other artistic work.
...this is about a record label subverting a contract. EMI clearly feels EMI will make more money by subverting the contract and selling tracks, Pink Floyd clearly feels Pink Floyd will make more money by selling entire albums and doesn't want to jeopardize that. EMI is probably right, Pink Floyd possibly so. The courts only come in due to the fact that they can actually afford to sue their label over EMI's failure to live up to its contract.
I have not audited their finances, of course, but I seriously doubt that Pink Floyd is hurting for money. I imagine they are enjoying a large degree of financial security. Additionally, this is music that has had an enduring appeal for decades now and is not some one-hit wonder or trendy pop music that gets their 15 minutes of fame, milks that for all the money they can get, and fades into obscurity. For these reasons, I'm more inclined to believe that this is truly an artistic concern over how they want their work to be appreciated.
In other words, I think it's EMI and only EMI that is concerned about money here. I believe this is why they took liberties with the contract that were not upheld by the court. It's good to see some occasional sanity in the copyright realm and I think this sets a desirable precedent. Congratulations to Pink Floyd for demonstrating that "the system" can occasionally be fair and fulfill its purpose of protecting our rights, as we hear far too many examples to the contrary. Still, I don't doubt that you're right about one thing: the desirable outcome was quite likely because Pink Floyd can afford good legal representation and therefore would not be so easy for a corporation to push around.
Let's hope they get permanently blocked by their ISP (and others) for three strikes.
It'd be unfortunate for it to have to come to that, but it would be an ultimately good thing if such advocates for ever stringent copyright laws got a taste of their own medicine. In a way, that's what is happening here. Pink Floyd is only able to exert this control (and have a judge back them up) because of the strict nature of copyright law, including over songs that are significantly older than many folks participating in this discussion. It seems that EMI and others who lobby for more copyright restrictions have gotten what they wanted. It's viscerally satisfying to see that what they want and try so hard to get more of is not always how they imagined it to be.
It's about time that a TSA agent steps over the line enough for the justice system to finally react and hit back. So far the TSA has been running their own show and making up their own laws so much that I became genuinely scared of passing through the USA on my next trip.
The TSA agent is being charged with tampering with a TSA system. The TSA just decided that he's not one of them after all and is merely trying to secure their own interests and make an example. I doubt this will stop their authoritarian attitude towards airline customers. I'd like to be wrong about this, however.
That's only the case because we are doing this market thing backwards. Specifically, the corporations involved have more power than their customers. So instead of listening to what their customers want and creating products in response to this demand, they produce the products first that serve their own interests and use clever marketing (and take advantage of existing marketshare) to artifically create demand for them. The result is that things like IE are on a take-it-or-leave-it basis that is not open to negotiation.
Ehmm, it's a browser. It has to *just work*.
I'm not talking about whether that is the case. I am talking about how that is arranged and what is wrong with the current way (i.e. market forces) that we arrange it. Therefore, yours was a rather superficial response.
But the problem is, they rarely do. Generally Microsoft's ideas start out just fine, then they play the patent card, extend features and end up with a product radically different than their specifications. The problem isn't that Microsoft is making the standards, it is just because in recent years Microsoft hasn't made a single, decent, workable standard without playing the patent card.
Agreed. It's not an issue of acceptability of standards. Microsoft has lots of talented employees to whom it could assign that task. It's an issue of trust. Time and again, this company has proven that it will act in its own interests (which is acceptable from a corporation) to the detriment of everyone else's interests (which is not acceptable from anyone).
Meanwhile, it has given few or no examples of honoring the purpose of open standards. There's simply no reason whatsoever to believe that this time they really intend to play fair and be honest, and by that I mean the-truth-and-the-whole-truth honesty. It's an amazing example of collective stupidity and/or a collective short memory that anyone even pretends this is a question. It might be comedic if it didn't cause so many complications for so many people.
Naturally Microsoft doesn't have to bear the cost of those complications. When it decided long ago that IE would not follow standards very well, this forced many Web developers to expend a great deal of extra effort to handle IE's incompatibilities. Let X equal the amount of time and effort it would take to design such a Web site for a single universal standard to which all browsers adhere. Let Y equal the (larger) amount of time and effort it took to design such a Web site that handles IE's intentional incompatibilities. Do you think Microsoft has ever had to pay for Y - X? In principle this makes them a lot like spammers, not in the sense that MS sends tons of unsolicited e-mails, but in the sense that others have to bear the cost of their marketing.
Can I get a +5, Insightful for repeating part of the parent post, too? Dude, he already said that.
Wow, you're right, sorry, I didn't read the whole post before I commented...but...this is slashdot, isn't that a requirement for posting? Who actually reads articles?/. is a forum for half-baked, half-assed opinionated remarks written solely for the purpose of starting flame wars. At least that is what I was told when I signed up years ago.
I don't think the AC was blaming you for writing that. I think he was blaming the moderators for promoting it. You probably didn't read the article or the summary, and yes that is rather typical around here since people are generally more concerned about comment visibility than they are about things like readability, useful non-redundant contributions, or factual accuracy. Style over substance is highly prized in superficial societies and all of that. But it's expected that moderators shouldn't be in such a hurry and should do a better job of considering whether something really deserves one of their limited points.
I think that AC successfully trolled you without even intending to. You might or might not have a sense of humor that finds amusement in that, but I do.
How about we break away from the W3C and its strange policies and instead appoint a community-based chair with people from Mozilla, Apple, Opera, Google, Microsoft (if they would show) and anyone else who wanted to make a browser. I'm not really seeing the benefit of the W3C lately, and with this, why don't we just break away?
The main reason to not do that is that you probably won't get either the (main) browser makers or the users to show up. Without them, you're simply irrelevant. But if they do turn up, you've effectively got the W3C (with maybe a round of musical chairmanships at the top). Lot of fuss and bother to achieve nothing of value.
That's only the case because we are doing this market thing backwards. Specifically, the corporations involved have more power than their customers. So instead of listening to what their customers want and creating products in response to this demand, they produce the products first that serve their own interests and use clever marketing (and take advantage of existing marketshare) to artifically create demand for them. The result is that things like IE are on a take-it-or-leave-it basis that is not open to negotiation.
If the customers frankly had a bit more backbone when it comes to being treated as a resource and didn't allow themselves to be manipulated for their marketshare/mindshare so easily, it would be the other way around. The W3C would be relevant or irrelevant based on whether most Web users and developers had faith in it. If most Web users and developers had faith in it, then the option available to Microsoft and Mozilla and other organizations would be simplified: abide by the standard or be ignored and fall by the wayside. I don't imagine this would be a problem for Mozilla, but this would require that Microsoft change the way they do things. If that happened, it could only be to our benefit.
Those three don't seem to have the online fanclub that Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) seem to have. The times I have seen stories about Oracle or Intel or IBM misbehaving, there were not nearly so many people who came out of the woodwork to defend them or make excuses for them as when a similar story appears about Microsoft. But for any who do this for the companies you mentioned, I'd say the same thing applies (leading me to wonder what your point was). If you are suggesting I am picking on Microsoft, I ask you one question: when it comes to abusive behavior that does not benefit the public, is the name of the corporation really important to you?
I personally feel no need to spend my time defending a corporation that has large budgets and legions of advertisers, PR people, and lawyers dedicated to giving it a good public image whether it actually deserves one or not. I have no rational explanation for the motives of people who do feel such a need. I suppose some of them may indeed be astroturfers but I don't think that's a satisfying explanation. It doesn't explain the genuine "fanboy" nature of much of this behavior, and I (would like to) think professional astroturfers could do a better job than most such posts I have seen on Slashdot. Personally I think it's typical "us against them" behavior like you see among sports fans who root for different teams, and about equally unsophisticated.
That I don't mention Linux or GPL'd software in general here is quite deliberate. I don't know of any authors of GPL'd software who are in a position to force their software or their standards on anyone. The very nature of it makes that difficult if not impossible. Therefore, there are no such abuses like embrace-and-extend coming from this group that would require apologists in the first place.
Because anyone who suggests an alternative, community-oriented way of doing things must be immediately discredited and comparison to hippies singing kum-bay-ah around a campfire was the best that the GP could come up with.
...so why would they care anymore whether IE will ever be compliant as long as corporate IT continue to make IE the default browser?
You've apparently put a little thought into it, so anything Microsoft says about standards is not intended for you. It's intended for people who honestly believe (because they have not thought about it) that an organization with billions of dollars, vast resources, and many talented developers could not make a standards-compliant browser if it really wanted to. Microsoft has never wanted to compete in a level playing field on the basis of merit, in terms of who can produce the best implementation of a given open standard. If they wanted to do that, they would do it and they would abandon embrace-and-extend. So, the W3C has a status something like "ignore when convenient" for Microsoft, and an insider in a position of authority who is sympathetic to their goals only makes this easier.
Corporations are fairly easy to understand once you look at them correctly. They're not evil or good; they're amoral. They're not nice or mean; they're strategically selfish. They don't do things haphazardly; they execute long-term plans. Good strategy looks just like the deck happened to be stacked in your favor from the beginning, as though it were coincidence or good luck.
"Microsoft apologist"... is that like a "communist sympathizer"?
If Communism is a single, unified organization with both a multibillion-dollar budget and many experienced PR people dedicated to providing its own apologia, then yes the two terms have a lot in common.
You act like in the 2 1/.2 years that this has been going on not one competent computer user ever used that charger.
Honestly I'd have to say I don't know, since I have no data either way, though I'd be surprised if at least one has not as that seems quite unlikely. I consider this irrelevant however. I don't regard this as an issue of whether competent users choose this charger, because competency with computers does not give one the ability to predict the future. Without predicting the future, there's no way to know that a particular charger is compromised in this way without actually examining it and its software.
So instead I focus on how the present situation could be contained. I see it in terms of whether competent users would notice suspicious network traffic originating at their own computers. There are tools which enable Windows users to do this (ZoneAlarm is a well-known example), and none of them require real expertise to use. That would be a likely beginning for the sort of investigation that, once brought to the attention of folks with expertise, could eventually uncover what we now know today.
To me, user incompetence is more of an explanation for why this took 2.5 years, how it went on for so long despite common tools that could have alerted users early on that something suspicious was going on. The legions of users who have malware-infested Windows machines and don't think about it any more than to say "gee my machine is slow these days" help to illustrate the plausibility of my point.
In many ways we are all guilty of being ignorant in one area or an other. However saying someone is stupid for not knowing how to do something or even look up how to do it is rude and unwarranted.
I was talking about this in terms of competency, not in terms of stupidity. For example, I am not a competent surgeon because I know absolutely nothing about surgery. That doesn't mean I'm stupid, it means I haven't gone to medical school. When I personally spoke about "competency" I meant it in this sense. I see that an AC mentioned "stupidity" but you'll have to take it up with that AC.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so easy. You think your solution hasn't been tried before / exist now? All it leads to is drivers taking uppers to stay awake and drive hours past when they should be taking a break, as well as encouraging them to speed.
It's conducive to the discussion if, before posting, you note that someone else has already raised this very same objection (32 minutes before you posted this) and that I have already addressed it with a proposed solution. The already-stated objection and my response to it are in the very same thread.
I think you fail to appreciate the sequence of events here. There's every reason to trust them, up until you find hard data showing that they have been overcharging. That is what happened. At this point, it's quite reasonable to want some verification. Automation isn't necessary either. All you need is a clear, unambiguous on/off indicator to let the customer know whether the out-of-town rate in question is being applied. Why wouldn't you want that to be done openly?
As long as this system makes it easy to unambiguously determine, at a glance, whether or not the out-of-town rate is being applied, then yeah that's rather silly of the passenger not to take notice. It'd be your standard failure to perform due diligence. If such systems are already in place and are already a standard feature, then the next step would be to determine why so many customers have been unaware of the information they are intended to provide.
Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time.
With that you get drivers rushing through their deliveries or trying to squeeze in an extra one or two runs per day. That's great and all and everyone wins, right? Until a driver that's taking drugs for alertness has a heart attack or one that doesn't falls asleep at the wheel. Cargo gets manhandled, customers get lousy service from cranky and rushed drivers, and the equipment takes a lot of abuse. The DEA starts sniffing around the employee lockers and trucks, insurance companies, workman's comp. adjusters, and lawsuit happy attorneys circle nearby.
The other suggestions (the LED one) I'm in favor of. Let the customer know he's (possibly) being cheated, and they can work it out from there.
It seems to me you could avoid that by defining a maximum safe/realistic number of deliveries to be made during any one timespan. You could derive such a figure by averaging the number of deliveries made by the top 5-10% highest-performing drivers who have had no at-fault accidents and no customer complaints about quality. Then add a margin to that of around 25% or so and you get your maximum permitted number. This would be easy enough for the company to control since the drivers have no cargo that it did not give them and this is the case whether they are employees or contractors.
I still don't see where this is such a complex problem that GPS tracking is the only possible solution, or even a good solution.
There's an easy solution to that which involves neither GPS tracking nor micromanagement.
Pay the drivers on a per-delivery basis, allowing for things like distance driven and amount or weight of cargo to be variables that determine this rate. Then the drivers can decide how they wish to use that 20 minutes. If a driver can make 11 deliveries in X time, then he gets paid about 28% more than a driver who makes 8 deliveries in X time. Now they have an incentive to be more productive that doesn't require tagging them like cattle and any expenses associated with that. The recipients of the deliveries have no incentive to help the drivers cheat this system, since that would mean failing to receive their items.
The most robust solution to this is presented in the summary. Have some unambiguous indicator that allows the paying passenger to see whether the out-of-town rate is being applied. It could be as simple as a bright LED with a label saying "When light is on, out-of-town rates are being applied" that is tied to the driver's rate switch. This would guard against both deliberate deception and honest mistakes and would represent full disclosure to the customer.
The idea of using GPS to monitor everyone's whereabouts and track their activities is both unnecessary and needlessly complex. Simpler, more robust solutions can be implemented that come with none of the privacy concerns. Not only is a centralized GPS database a tempting target for attackers who would compromise it, it's also a single point of failure if such a compromise does occur. That's undesirable in a system used to keep people honest. It'd be far more difficult to obtain physical access to every cab in NYC and disable the physical indicator of which rate is being applied.
That part is strange. Uncontrolled acceleration is a much greater risk to life and limb than the red-lined/blown engine you might get if it were put into neutral with the throttle wide open. Being "afraid to try neutral" makes no sense.
Just an irrelevant side note: I've always found it low-class and tacky that phone calls made to 911 become publically available, especially when you hear them on the news. The message is, "hey sir or madam, remember that moment when you were highly emotional and had no idea if you were going to live or die? Well, we've got great news! That highly personal moment of reflection on your own mortality is now a public spectacle for millions of people! It's okay, we make a profit from this! No we won't share that profit with you..."
I realize it's a government service funded by taxpayer dollars. That explains how this is possible. It fails to explain how this is the best or most honorable thing to do.
That part generally shouldn't be a surprise. I'd imagine it also helps if you can keep calm and avoid panicking, as panicky people often fail at things they could do easily if they were not in a state of deer-in-headlights fear.
Nor does it explain why older drivers were disproportionately affected. Possibly the Toyota brand is more popular among older drivers because it historically has retained a decent resale value. While nothing the driver does should ever cause this kind of uncontrollable automatic acceleration, perhaps older drivers tend to have habits that somehow manifest whatever the actual underlying problem is. There are a lot of coincidences and correlations being pointed out in this discussion but unfortunately there seems to be little certainty about whether they are more than that.
Since when did that ever prevent anyone from doing anything? You must have us confused with some society that generally considers the full implications and long-term repercussions of our decisions...
You're actually not the first to notice that. I have thought before that it'd be interesting for me to study the numerology and see if there is a deeper significance to that, since the next free UID Slashdot had available when I created this account is otherwise a "random" event beyond my control.
I think this could be compared to authors of GPL software. When a programmer releases software licensed by the GPL, it is both understood and legally honored that if you want to use the software, you must abide by the terms of the license. I do see a great deal of advocacy for the GPL on this site, but I generally don't see anyone here trying to tell authors of commercial software that it's morally wrong to use a closed license. Here, I draw a distinction between trying to persuade a developer that the GPL has merit versus trying to pressure a developer to take actions that he or she doesn't want to take. The normal response to software released under a license you dislike is to not use that software and find a more suitable alternative. I don't see much hypocrisy in that, really.
This may be an uninformed opinion, and I'll state that up-front: if maximum sales were Pink Floyd's only goal, this would be better realized by selling every possible arrangement of songs/albums. They are making a decision which could cost them some sales from customers who are only interested in select songs and don't want to pay for the whole album. They're doing this because of how they intend for their music to be enjoyed. I think this is indeed an example of artistic integrity because they stand to make more money if they didn't do this.
Most of the really good arguments about DRM are not based on whether the artist should or should not have the freedom to decide whether to use it. Most of the really good arguments are based on the fact that it just plain fails to accomplish its intended goals, and tends to lead to a situation where those who pirate the work have an experience superior to those who pay for the work. I personally agree with those arguments. Thus, I wouldn't try to petition Pink Floyd to not use DRM. I would consider it a shortsighted mistake if they did use it, however.
There are certainly exceptions, but most of the time it's not the artists who want DRM and other overbearing or unreasonable restrictions. It's usually the publishers. One reason to root for Pink Floyd here is that labels are known for taking a majority of the profits from album sales and generally using their finances and clout to push around the artists without whom they'd be out of b
3 moderators agree with him; none with you.
Dude, I get massive amounts of mod points here all the time, and I'm a fuckin' idiot. What's your point?
Real idiots don't know that they are idiots and they generally proceed to make decisions as though they were infallible. Then when something goes wrong, it's always someone else's fault or due to "luck" and circumstance but is certainly never attributed to their own poor decision-making. The humble gesture you just made strongly implies that you're not such an idiot, if I may say so.
That's precisely what I was suggesting. That it was "the only way" was not a chance or accident but an integral part of my comment (frankly your "objection" is little more than an assumption without indication that I would overlook something so obvious). Remember that the original period of copyright was twelve years, and this was when the most sophisticated method of music distribution was the phonograph (if it was even widely available back then). Despite the fact that you can produce and distribute (i.e. sell) far more copies in twelve years now than you could back then, copyright has had ridiculously long extensions applied to it because these monied interests are never satisfied. Enough is never enough for them.
I would speculate that one can make money selling copies of public-domain works. I think it would be similar to (though not exactly like) the way you can make money selling copies of Linux installation CDs. In such cases, the customer is not paying for a license to the intangible work, but for someone to provide a physical copy of it. The business would be based on the cost to place such works onto a physical medium and distribute them plus a reasonable profit. It just wouldn't be the exclusive big-money deal that the likes of EMI would prefer, but the whole point of copyright is that this provides an incentive to produce more works. Not only is that a good thing, it's also a basic part of the concept.
I believe they won because of contract law, not copyright law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract
I'm not a lawyer but I don't think that contract would be valid if this were, say, a public-domain work. Even if that's only because a public-domain work might fail to meet the requirements for "consideration" in a contract because it's obtainable for free by anyone and so has a monetary value of zero. So I don't think this is so easy to separate from copyright, though I'd be happy to have a lawyer correct what is admittedly my armchair guesswork.
This is rather one-dimensional thinking that doesn't account for the message this sends. This is an instance of that tight control having negative repercussions for the very people who advocate that control and continue to want more of it. Generally the record labels push for stricter copyright because they see that as something that could only benefit them. In that manner they are exercising the same type of short-term, one-dimensional thinking. That's why they have not heretofore been concerned about the negative consequences to their customers and to society, because those are "collateral damage" and "acceptable losses" until it happens to them personally.
Now that they are taking some of that collateral damage, they might realize that they are not completely exempt from the downsides of authoritarian copyright law. This incident alone probably won't change much, but more examples like this might make them reconsider whether lobbying for even more restrictions is such a good idea. Generally the people who run these corporations are egotistic, childish, and rather unevolved, as evidenced by their total lack of concern for the harm caused by increasingly unjust and exploitative laws that they try so hard to purchase. All they want to do is "look out for number one" and maximize their own gains. That's why arguments about the greater good of society, the purpose of copyright, and the notion of balance between the public domain and the temporary monopoly of copyright are lost upon them. The reality that their own favorite policies might cost them money is one of the only things that could change their attitude.
Personally I think calling this "evil" is an example of melodrama. Having said that, if this is indeed "evil", then the record companies are getting some firsthand exposure to why that might be the case. They are getting to lay in the bed that they thought they were making only for others. This is one of the only things that might make a few monied interests seriously listen to arguments that there might be something wrong with such strict control.
The record company is getting exactly what it wanted: strict control. They just made the mistake of believing that only they would get to exercise such control. The only question now is whether they will realize the nature of their mistake and how their own actions led up to it. There's nothing contradictory about recognizing this.
They're doing what they believe is best, just as you would do what you believe is best if you were to produce an album or other artistic work.
...this is about a record label subverting a contract. EMI clearly feels EMI will make more money by subverting the contract and selling tracks, Pink Floyd clearly feels Pink Floyd will make more money by selling entire albums and doesn't want to jeopardize that. EMI is probably right, Pink Floyd possibly so. The courts only come in due to the fact that they can actually afford to sue their label over EMI's failure to live up to its contract.
I have not audited their finances, of course, but I seriously doubt that Pink Floyd is hurting for money. I imagine they are enjoying a large degree of financial security. Additionally, this is music that has had an enduring appeal for decades now and is not some one-hit wonder or trendy pop music that gets their 15 minutes of fame, milks that for all the money they can get, and fades into obscurity. For these reasons, I'm more inclined to believe that this is truly an artistic concern over how they want their work to be appreciated.
In other words, I think it's EMI and only EMI that is concerned about money here. I believe this is why they took liberties with the contract that were not upheld by the court. It's good to see some occasional sanity in the copyright realm and I think this sets a desirable precedent. Congratulations to Pink Floyd for demonstrating that "the system" can occasionally be fair and fulfill its purpose of protecting our rights, as we hear far too many examples to the contrary. Still, I don't doubt that you're right about one thing: the desirable outcome was quite likely because Pink Floyd can afford good legal representation and therefore would not be so easy for a corporation to push around.
Let's hope they get permanently blocked by their ISP (and others) for three strikes.
It'd be unfortunate for it to have to come to that, but it would be an ultimately good thing if such advocates for ever stringent copyright laws got a taste of their own medicine. In a way, that's what is happening here. Pink Floyd is only able to exert this control (and have a judge back them up) because of the strict nature of copyright law, including over songs that are significantly older than many folks participating in this discussion. It seems that EMI and others who lobby for more copyright restrictions have gotten what they wanted. It's viscerally satisfying to see that what they want and try so hard to get more of is not always how they imagined it to be.
It's about time that a TSA agent steps over the line enough for the justice system to finally react and hit back. So far the TSA has been running their own show and making up their own laws so much that I became genuinely scared of passing through the USA on my next trip.
The TSA agent is being charged with tampering with a TSA system. The TSA just decided that he's not one of them after all and is merely trying to secure their own interests and make an example. I doubt this will stop their authoritarian attitude towards airline customers. I'd like to be wrong about this, however.
That's only the case because we are doing this market thing backwards. Specifically, the corporations involved have more power than their customers. So instead of listening to what their customers want and creating products in response to this demand, they produce the products first that serve their own interests and use clever marketing (and take advantage of existing marketshare) to artifically create demand for them. The result is that things like IE are on a take-it-or-leave-it basis that is not open to negotiation.
Ehmm, it's a browser. It has to *just work*.
I'm not talking about whether that is the case. I am talking about how that is arranged and what is wrong with the current way (i.e. market forces) that we arrange it. Therefore, yours was a rather superficial response.
I have no rational explanation
Yes, there is much you don't understand.
I believe I understand why this is the most useful reply you could produce. Your others in this discussion removed any doubt I may have had.
But the problem is, they rarely do. Generally Microsoft's ideas start out just fine, then they play the patent card, extend features and end up with a product radically different than their specifications. The problem isn't that Microsoft is making the standards, it is just because in recent years Microsoft hasn't made a single, decent, workable standard without playing the patent card.
Agreed. It's not an issue of acceptability of standards. Microsoft has lots of talented employees to whom it could assign that task. It's an issue of trust. Time and again, this company has proven that it will act in its own interests (which is acceptable from a corporation) to the detriment of everyone else's interests (which is not acceptable from anyone).
Meanwhile, it has given few or no examples of honoring the purpose of open standards. There's simply no reason whatsoever to believe that this time they really intend to play fair and be honest, and by that I mean the-truth-and-the-whole-truth honesty. It's an amazing example of collective stupidity and/or a collective short memory that anyone even pretends this is a question. It might be comedic if it didn't cause so many complications for so many people.
Naturally Microsoft doesn't have to bear the cost of those complications. When it decided long ago that IE would not follow standards very well, this forced many Web developers to expend a great deal of extra effort to handle IE's incompatibilities. Let X equal the amount of time and effort it would take to design such a Web site for a single universal standard to which all browsers adhere. Let Y equal the (larger) amount of time and effort it took to design such a Web site that handles IE's intentional incompatibilities. Do you think Microsoft has ever had to pay for Y - X? In principle this makes them a lot like spammers, not in the sense that MS sends tons of unsolicited e-mails, but in the sense that others have to bear the cost of their marketing.
Can I get a +5, Insightful for repeating part of the parent post, too? Dude, he already said that.
Wow, you're right, sorry, I didn't read the whole post before I commented...but...this is slashdot, isn't that a requirement for posting? Who actually reads articles? /. is a forum for half-baked, half-assed opinionated remarks written solely for the purpose of starting flame wars. At least that is what I was told when I signed up years ago.
I don't think the AC was blaming you for writing that. I think he was blaming the moderators for promoting it. You probably didn't read the article or the summary, and yes that is rather typical around here since people are generally more concerned about comment visibility than they are about things like readability, useful non-redundant contributions, or factual accuracy. Style over substance is highly prized in superficial societies and all of that. But it's expected that moderators shouldn't be in such a hurry and should do a better job of considering whether something really deserves one of their limited points.
I think that AC successfully trolled you without even intending to. You might or might not have a sense of humor that finds amusement in that, but I do.
How about we break away from the W3C and its strange policies and instead appoint a community-based chair with people from Mozilla, Apple, Opera, Google, Microsoft (if they would show) and anyone else who wanted to make a browser. I'm not really seeing the benefit of the W3C lately, and with this, why don't we just break away?
The main reason to not do that is that you probably won't get either the (main) browser makers or the users to show up. Without them, you're simply irrelevant. But if they do turn up, you've effectively got the W3C (with maybe a round of musical chairmanships at the top). Lot of fuss and bother to achieve nothing of value.
That's only the case because we are doing this market thing backwards. Specifically, the corporations involved have more power than their customers. So instead of listening to what their customers want and creating products in response to this demand, they produce the products first that serve their own interests and use clever marketing (and take advantage of existing marketshare) to artifically create demand for them. The result is that things like IE are on a take-it-or-leave-it basis that is not open to negotiation.
If the customers frankly had a bit more backbone when it comes to being treated as a resource and didn't allow themselves to be manipulated for their marketshare/mindshare so easily, it would be the other way around. The W3C would be relevant or irrelevant based on whether most Web users and developers had faith in it. If most Web users and developers had faith in it, then the option available to Microsoft and Mozilla and other organizations would be simplified: abide by the standard or be ignored and fall by the wayside. I don't imagine this would be a problem for Mozilla, but this would require that Microsoft change the way they do things. If that happened, it could only be to our benefit.
So are you referring to IBM? Oracle? Intel?
Those three don't seem to have the online fanclub that Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) seem to have. The times I have seen stories about Oracle or Intel or IBM misbehaving, there were not nearly so many people who came out of the woodwork to defend them or make excuses for them as when a similar story appears about Microsoft. But for any who do this for the companies you mentioned, I'd say the same thing applies (leading me to wonder what your point was). If you are suggesting I am picking on Microsoft, I ask you one question: when it comes to abusive behavior that does not benefit the public, is the name of the corporation really important to you?
I personally feel no need to spend my time defending a corporation that has large budgets and legions of advertisers, PR people, and lawyers dedicated to giving it a good public image whether it actually deserves one or not. I have no rational explanation for the motives of people who do feel such a need. I suppose some of them may indeed be astroturfers but I don't think that's a satisfying explanation. It doesn't explain the genuine "fanboy" nature of much of this behavior, and I (would like to) think professional astroturfers could do a better job than most such posts I have seen on Slashdot. Personally I think it's typical "us against them" behavior like you see among sports fans who root for different teams, and about equally unsophisticated.
That I don't mention Linux or GPL'd software in general here is quite deliberate. I don't know of any authors of GPL'd software who are in a position to force their software or their standards on anyone. The very nature of it makes that difficult if not impossible. Therefore, there are no such abuses like embrace-and-extend coming from this group that would require apologists in the first place.
What does rope have to do with anything?
Because anyone who suggests an alternative, community-oriented way of doing things must be immediately discredited and comparison to hippies singing kum-bay-ah around a campfire was the best that the GP could come up with.
...so why would they care anymore whether IE will ever be compliant as long as corporate IT continue to make IE the default browser?
You've apparently put a little thought into it, so anything Microsoft says about standards is not intended for you. It's intended for people who honestly believe (because they have not thought about it) that an organization with billions of dollars, vast resources, and many talented developers could not make a standards-compliant browser if it really wanted to. Microsoft has never wanted to compete in a level playing field on the basis of merit, in terms of who can produce the best implementation of a given open standard. If they wanted to do that, they would do it and they would abandon embrace-and-extend. So, the W3C has a status something like "ignore when convenient" for Microsoft, and an insider in a position of authority who is sympathetic to their goals only makes this easier.
Corporations are fairly easy to understand once you look at them correctly. They're not evil or good; they're amoral. They're not nice or mean; they're strategically selfish. They don't do things haphazardly; they execute long-term plans. Good strategy looks just like the deck happened to be stacked in your favor from the beginning, as though it were coincidence or good luck.
"Microsoft apologist"... is that like a "communist sympathizer"?
If Communism is a single, unified organization with both a multibillion-dollar budget and many experienced PR people dedicated to providing its own apologia, then yes the two terms have a lot in common.
You act like in the 2 1/.2 years that this has been going on not one competent computer user ever used that charger.
Honestly I'd have to say I don't know, since I have no data either way, though I'd be surprised if at least one has not as that seems quite unlikely. I consider this irrelevant however. I don't regard this as an issue of whether competent users choose this charger, because competency with computers does not give one the ability to predict the future. Without predicting the future, there's no way to know that a particular charger is compromised in this way without actually examining it and its software.
So instead I focus on how the present situation could be contained. I see it in terms of whether competent users would notice suspicious network traffic originating at their own computers. There are tools which enable Windows users to do this (ZoneAlarm is a well-known example), and none of them require real expertise to use. That would be a likely beginning for the sort of investigation that, once brought to the attention of folks with expertise, could eventually uncover what we now know today.
To me, user incompetence is more of an explanation for why this took 2.5 years, how it went on for so long despite common tools that could have alerted users early on that something suspicious was going on. The legions of users who have malware-infested Windows machines and don't think about it any more than to say "gee my machine is slow these days" help to illustrate the plausibility of my point.
I was talking about this in terms of competency, not in terms of stupidity. For example, I am not a competent surgeon because I know absolutely nothing about surgery. That doesn't mean I'm stupid, it means I haven't gone to medical school. When I personally spoke about "competency" I meant it in this sense. I see that an AC mentioned "stupidity" but you'll have to take it up with that AC.