the fact that you can see through the portals and have an object go halfway through a portal are unusual.
There's also some potential that's not really unlocked in Portal itself. For example, seeing through the portal could allow you to shoot through it (Portal only allows you to drop things through portals). The game it's based on (Narbacular Drop) even allowed you to place portals (imagine being able to shoot the portal gun through the portal) while looking through the portals, which made for some interesting strategy.
So it is an interesting case of teleportation. I'm not entirely sure it even makes sense to call it teleportation, though. The effect is not that objects themselves are being transported through any special means, but instead space is twisted around.
Well, yeah, that was part of my point. It seems like it should be rare that that sort of information needs to be pulled out at all. But even when you did need an identifier, it should usually be good enough to have an different id for that application alone which can be referenced back to a name and SSN later. (I don't think they should usually need to pull names or any other personally-identifiable information.)
You can't say for sure without knowing the actual situation, but it seems like most often this sort of thing comes about because of pure carelessness.
Well, except that you probably don't want to literally argue this case as much as possible. Executives/managers are governed by the same psychology as everyone else, and if you hammer at the same issue for too long, they'll stop listening, and even worse, get annoyed. Once they're annoyed, they won't want you to be right.
It's often better to have a lighter touch. Bring it up in conversation when you're already floating around a similar topic. Make predictions of minor disasters that might happen, and when those predictions come true, point out that it was foreseeable. Be right about a lot of things, and when you've built up a certain level of trust as "someone who knows what he's talking about," then you drop the bomb. At some point you sigh and say, "Geeze. Imagine what will happen when this whole thing breaks because we're doing this the wrong way." It'll get people's attention.
I mean, that'd just be one technique, but my point is really that it can pay off to exercise some patience. If you go off trying to fix all your company's problems all at once, you won't get anywhere. If you spend time getting to know the people, getting them to trust your judgement, and getting to know the ins and outs of your company, you'll have a much greater chance of getting things done.
For some people this won't work because of the ego trip involved in getting a laptop (and some people do actually need laptops), but others will appreciate the fact that they don't have to lug this thing around.
Well also there's arguably the problem of trying to work on these records in an environment that doesn't include Internet access. On the other hand, I would really wonder whether people really need external access to this sort of information at all. I find it difficult to think of any valid use of my social security number that would make sense for a worker to be accessing it from home.
There needs to be a fixed ID system which is separate from the credit system (as in credit score) and governmental ID systems.
Part of the problem is just that everyone wants everything to be easy, and "easy" doesn't get along well with "secure". Like with social security numbers-- they're being treated as a piece of secure information in order to identify people (which it wasn't intended to do). But then as a result, you have to give it to people *all the time*. Because so many things require your social security number and people are encouraged to give it so freely, it's effectively out in the open, and not a piece of secure information.
But then what ID can I give someone online for an incidental purchase that won't effectively be "out in the open" after a couple of purchases? The only thing I can think of is if there were some sort of public key encryption signature that was issued to each person. That would possibly be cool, but then you'd have to come up with a trustworthy system to issue those keys/certificates, and you have to trust someone to administer to that system.
It gets complicated fast. And ultimately, most people won't put up with anything that inconveniences them or requires them to be vigilant
That just motivates them to either cover it up really well, or else maintain some level of plausible deniability. You just can't make something illegal with a stiff penalty and then expect that people will come forward and report themselves.
Well what about long-term services like Life Insurance?...A friend of mine got a notice from his life insurance firm saying that a laptop was stolen that probably had his records on it.
It seems like you could have a rule to dispose of data after the transaction except in businesses/industries where it's necessary, and then regulate those businesses/industries better than we do now. How about it's illegal for a company to put that sort of data onto a laptop?
I don't know. Even if that's the case, I would wonder if Verizon intentionally had an ad agency do that, but maintained a level of plausible deniability.
They've changed their setup now, but it used to be that when you checked for FIOS availability, and FIOS was not available, it wouldn't tell you that. Instead, it would say, in great big letters, "Congratulations, Verizon Broadband is available in your area." And then it would point you towards their DSL services as though you were checking for that. I always thought it seemed intentionally misleading, like a classic case of the bait and switch.
Yeah, I can get that from a good cable company in the city. I had one cable company for a while that was offering 30Mb down and 5Mb up, which was pretty good. But Verizon is advertising FIOS services up to 50Mb down and 20Mb up. God only knows whether they deliver on that, but I'd kill to get 20Mb upstream for under $100/month.
Yeah, I get that. My understanding is that it's also harder to get the whole thing approved in someplace like NYC. My point is just that, due to practical issues, they aren't deploying first in the most densely populated areas.
Apparently there's an optimum smallness and density. Verizon seems to be putting FiOS into the suburbs surrounding major cities faster than into the major cities themselves.
So I called them up and asked how to get started. They did some checking on things, and told me it wasn't available in my area. I was confused. Did they not have my address when they sent me the flyer?
Yeah. Frustrating. I've been having fliers delivered to my doorstep for *years* now, and yet they're not even remotely in my area. It's not just a situation where the neighbors down the street can get FiOS, but I'm just barely on the other side of the line-- no. You can't get FiOS in my zip code. You can't even get it in my neighboring zipcodes.
...that is then projected into a 2D representation for display on the monitor, that is then transformed by my brain back into a 3D representation, and then further needs to be transformed into a 4D object...
Except that it's a 2D representation that is interpreted by your brain as a 3D representation, which is then put into motion in movie form, making it essentially a 4 dimensional representation already, which you're then being asked to imagine extending into yet another (5th) dimension.
I agree with you, but in my opinion the real problem is that these nags are centralized. Adobe has their own, JRE has its own, and often each application has its own. It seems to me like it's a waste of development for each vendor to be creating their own, a waste of system resources to have a bunch of different update applications running in the background, and a general annoyance to the user to have 50 different things popping up saying "update me now".
OS vendors should really be developing their own update mechanisms that can be extended to 3rd parties, and then encouraging 3rd parties to use them. This is actually one place where Linux package managers really shine. As a Debian user, I really like it when installing new 3rd-party software is as easy as adding a new repository. Once everything is in place (and it's added to my sources), I can update all of my software using apt.
And notice that in this setup, it doesn't require the OS vendor (Debian in this case) to host or endorse the 3rd party applications. All it requires is that the user approves searching an additional source for updates. I think Apple should consider doing this in their Software Update, and Microsoft in their Windows Update. They've already extended them to update their own applications, so it'd just be opening that system to additional 3rd-party sources. For security's sake, they should make sure there are good protections against unauthorized additions to the list of sources, and they should provide a good method to remove them once added.
Then you could schedule it all yourself, and have one single thing pop up saying, "These are the updates available for your system right now. Which would you like to install?"
Yeah, thats pretty much how smart people setup windows too. Its easier in Vista, because you can either just let them use the UAC approval prompts for elevation, or still use two accounts. It basically works exactly the same as you describe.
Yeah, I'd still set up two accounts. Not necessarily for myself-- When setting up Windows for myself, even then I used to set up two accounts and run my day-to-day applications with admin rights, but with an OS that prompts me for a password (Linux, OSX, Vista) I'll just pay attention to the prompts. But that's because I'm careful and pretty well know what I'm doing.
But for someone else, I'd probably still give them two separate logins. Part of the point, in my opinion, is to drill it into people's head that doing things that require admin access should require special actions. It should require that they deliberately set out to accomplish something, and not just hit "ok".
Explain to me what 'basic applications running without admin rights' has to do with the OS? You've been able to run windows as non-admin quite effectively since the windows 2000 days.
Um... no? I was working helpdesk when 2000 was released, and that's not true. It got to be, after a few years, that it was feasible to run 2000 without admin rights. Even then it took work. But when they were first released, even Office 2000 used to require admin rights when installed on Windows 2000. That instance, at least, was Microsoft's fault, and to me it demonstrates that Microsoft just wasn't thinking about security.
The problem was that, even when Windows 2000 was released, Microsoft was expecting people to generally be running as admin. Everything about the design encouraged this behavior, and nothing discouraged it. All Windows NT (and 2000) did was make it theoretically possible to set up a secure system, but it didn't make it easy, and it didn't make it the default. It effectively required you comb through files, adjusting permissions one at a time, giving write access to particular files and folders in your program and system folders. It was an awful experience.
There are all sorts of choices in OS design that can encourage developers to do things the right way, and discourage them from doing them in bad way. This is especially true if the OS vendor creates/controls one of the major development environments for their OS. So you can't just blame developers.
Vista has some big steps in the right direction. I very much like the idea of something like UAC. I could quibble over the implementation, but won't do that here. The point is that, by throwing up a prompt whenever admin rights are required, they're discouraging application developers from using admin rights.
The file was writable only by root, so of course, I "sudo gedit", made the change, and saved it. And I have no idea what that change does. I'm just trusting my friend not to screw me over because that's the path of least resistance....[snip]... There's simply no fix for stupid/lazy users. I'm stupid and lazy when it comes to Ubuntu.
Then you shouldn't be given the ability to run sudo on any box of any consequence. It's that simple. If someone is setting up a computer for you, they should put you in the sudoers file either, or else limit your sudo actions to things you'll actually do.
I don't mean that to be offensive or to bad-mouth you, but it's just that... well, you're right. Lots of people are lazy and/or "stupid" (you may as well say "ignorant" or "careless"), and there is no security system that can stop a lazy/stupid user from compromising the system if they're given sufficient rights. So the answer is generally to not give them sufficient rights.
Of course, this gets complicated when you're talking about the owner of a PC. Still, when I set those sorts of people up, I give them 2 accounts: one with admin access, one without admin access. I give them lots of warnings that the admin account is dangerous, and that they should only need the admin account for installing new software, and I tell them not to install software they don't need. That won't stop someone who won't follow that advice, but at least it puts the idea in their head that not everyone should have admin rights all the time, and that installing software is dangerous.
Of course, making this distinction is easier when you're running an OS that allows you to run basic applications without admin rights.
If it comes to it (perhaps because someone gains root access to my box and locks me out), I can simply reformat and reinstall Ubuntu.
Why would a hacker bother to lock you out of your box after gaining root access? All that does is let you know that you've been hacked. What you have to worry about is someone setting up camp on your computer and continuing to be able to read or alter your data at will without you knowing.
It would end creativity. No one would write boks, or movies or take pictures of any quality.
Of course, if you end copyright, you end creativity. No one would ever write a book or compose music or take pictures unless they were getting paid. I know I don't write anything ever and just post it on the Internet for free. Every time I take a picture, I expect to sell it. Certainly no music or books were written before copyright was invented. And if you really want creative work, the best thing to do is consolidate all distribution into a few huge companies.
</sarcasm> The truth is, people *LOVE* to do this shit. If you made music illegal, people would write it in secret and run underground night clubs to perform it. Just try to stop people from engaging in the creative arts-- you'll fail.
Now I'm not saying that copyright doesn't serve a purpose, but it's purpose is not to keep creativity from "ending".
Most of those features are syntactic sugar that makes the language more comfortable to Java programmers.
IANAProgrammer, but isn't that worth something? By which I mean, if you want to create a robust platform, doesn't it make some sense to create an environment where developers are comfortable?
Maybe it seems petty, but I would think that there was some value in allowing programmers to choose which language they wanted to use, so they could use whatever was comfortable for them.
Mind you, I'm not a *huge* fan of the browser-as-a-platform idea. It seems to me that browsers were originally designed to be viewers, and it shows. There's a need for a strict/secure viewer with no security holes, and there's a need for a cross-platform application framework based on client/server interaction. I'm still not sure I understand why they have to be the same program, and I'm not quite convinced that they should be the same program. But I guess I'm just on a wild tangent.
It seems to me like it depends on the job and it depends on the worker. Not all jobs can be measured well by "generating X amount of work". Sometimes the issue really is having someone standing by, available for when you need them.
And then, also, some of those people who spend half the day playing solitaire would spend 90% of their day playing solitaire if their boss didn't walk by now and then. Ignoring the problem of jobs where efficacy is hard to measure, you still need someone to come up with measurements, and then to spend time analyzing the metrics you collect.
To put it another way, let's assume for the sake of argument that every job can be measured well by objective statistical measurements, and also that those measurements can be taken remotely from a telecommuter. You still need a system for collecting and verifying those measurements. Then, on top of that, you need managers who can understand that data, identify problems, and rectify those problems remotely.
That sounds pretty simple if you're imagining a job where you can just mark someone as an "underachiever" and fire them if they don't shape up, but management is often a bit more complicated. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and part of a manager's job is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the members of his team. It's often not realistic to fire/replace someone when you see a weakness, because you'll just replace them with a different worker who has different weaknesses. Instead, you either have to position them so that their weakness isn't detrimental, or else try to help them grow and overcome that weakness. That would be pretty hard to do remotely.
So what I'm saying is, even in the best case scenario, it could make things very difficult to manage. The result is that you might be putting a lot of faith in the ability of the managers. Is that something you want to do?
Copyright law exist to protect the original author from abuses, so that the result of their hard working and sweating aren't used without proper compensation.
And part of how it's supposed to accomplish that is by protecting publishers from having other publishers poach their investment.
In order for the author to get compensation, some publisher has to pay him (traditionally, at least). So let's say publisher A pays the author and invests money in getting the work edited properly, and then publisher B gets a copy of the final work and starts printing/selling it. Imagine what would happen if that were allowed. Suddenly there would be absolutely no economic incentive for publisher A to invest money in paying the author and developing the idea. Suddenly the authors stop getting paid.
There are possible issues regarding an advantage, but I was also under the impression that the rules were (at least partially) there to help protect children from crazy training and undue pressure.
Whatever the case, rules are rules, and the IOC should give out whatever punishment is due. I would assume that some specific action is dictated by their rules in cases where this particular rule has been shown to be broken?
Slashdot Mirror
If you could get portals working, then it would mean faster-than-light travel, which would all by itself raise the possibility of time travel.
Apparently, I need a life too.
the fact that you can see through the portals and have an object go halfway through a portal are unusual.
There's also some potential that's not really unlocked in Portal itself. For example, seeing through the portal could allow you to shoot through it (Portal only allows you to drop things through portals). The game it's based on (Narbacular Drop) even allowed you to place portals (imagine being able to shoot the portal gun through the portal) while looking through the portals, which made for some interesting strategy.
So it is an interesting case of teleportation. I'm not entirely sure it even makes sense to call it teleportation, though. The effect is not that objects themselves are being transported through any special means, but instead space is twisted around.
Well, yeah, that was part of my point. It seems like it should be rare that that sort of information needs to be pulled out at all. But even when you did need an identifier, it should usually be good enough to have an different id for that application alone which can be referenced back to a name and SSN later. (I don't think they should usually need to pull names or any other personally-identifiable information.)
You can't say for sure without knowing the actual situation, but it seems like most often this sort of thing comes about because of pure carelessness.
You need to argue this case as much as possible.
Well, except that you probably don't want to literally argue this case as much as possible. Executives/managers are governed by the same psychology as everyone else, and if you hammer at the same issue for too long, they'll stop listening, and even worse, get annoyed. Once they're annoyed, they won't want you to be right.
It's often better to have a lighter touch. Bring it up in conversation when you're already floating around a similar topic. Make predictions of minor disasters that might happen, and when those predictions come true, point out that it was foreseeable. Be right about a lot of things, and when you've built up a certain level of trust as "someone who knows what he's talking about," then you drop the bomb. At some point you sigh and say, "Geeze. Imagine what will happen when this whole thing breaks because we're doing this the wrong way." It'll get people's attention.
I mean, that'd just be one technique, but my point is really that it can pay off to exercise some patience. If you go off trying to fix all your company's problems all at once, you won't get anywhere. If you spend time getting to know the people, getting them to trust your judgement, and getting to know the ins and outs of your company, you'll have a much greater chance of getting things done.
For some people this won't work because of the ego trip involved in getting a laptop (and some people do actually need laptops), but others will appreciate the fact that they don't have to lug this thing around.
Well also there's arguably the problem of trying to work on these records in an environment that doesn't include Internet access. On the other hand, I would really wonder whether people really need external access to this sort of information at all. I find it difficult to think of any valid use of my social security number that would make sense for a worker to be accessing it from home.
There needs to be a fixed ID system which is separate from the credit system (as in credit score) and governmental ID systems.
Part of the problem is just that everyone wants everything to be easy, and "easy" doesn't get along well with "secure". Like with social security numbers-- they're being treated as a piece of secure information in order to identify people (which it wasn't intended to do). But then as a result, you have to give it to people *all the time*. Because so many things require your social security number and people are encouraged to give it so freely, it's effectively out in the open, and not a piece of secure information.
But then what ID can I give someone online for an incidental purchase that won't effectively be "out in the open" after a couple of purchases? The only thing I can think of is if there were some sort of public key encryption signature that was issued to each person. That would possibly be cool, but then you'd have to come up with a trustworthy system to issue those keys/certificates, and you have to trust someone to administer to that system.
It gets complicated fast. And ultimately, most people won't put up with anything that inconveniences them or requires them to be vigilant
That just motivates them to either cover it up really well, or else maintain some level of plausible deniability. You just can't make something illegal with a stiff penalty and then expect that people will come forward and report themselves.
Well what about long-term services like Life Insurance?...A friend of mine got a notice from his life insurance firm saying that a laptop was stolen that probably had his records on it.
It seems like you could have a rule to dispose of data after the transaction except in businesses/industries where it's necessary, and then regulate those businesses/industries better than we do now. How about it's illegal for a company to put that sort of data onto a laptop?
I don't know. Even if that's the case, I would wonder if Verizon intentionally had an ad agency do that, but maintained a level of plausible deniability.
They've changed their setup now, but it used to be that when you checked for FIOS availability, and FIOS was not available, it wouldn't tell you that. Instead, it would say, in great big letters, "Congratulations, Verizon Broadband is available in your area." And then it would point you towards their DSL services as though you were checking for that. I always thought it seemed intentionally misleading, like a classic case of the bait and switch.
Yeah, I can get that from a good cable company in the city. I had one cable company for a while that was offering 30Mb down and 5Mb up, which was pretty good. But Verizon is advertising FIOS services up to 50Mb down and 20Mb up. God only knows whether they deliver on that, but I'd kill to get 20Mb upstream for under $100/month.
Yeah, I get that. My understanding is that it's also harder to get the whole thing approved in someplace like NYC. My point is just that, due to practical issues, they aren't deploying first in the most densely populated areas.
small and dense = easier to wire.
Apparently there's an optimum smallness and density. Verizon seems to be putting FiOS into the suburbs surrounding major cities faster than into the major cities themselves.
So I called them up and asked how to get started. They did some checking on things, and told me it wasn't available in my area. I was confused. Did they not have my address when they sent me the flyer?
Yeah. Frustrating. I've been having fliers delivered to my doorstep for *years* now, and yet they're not even remotely in my area. It's not just a situation where the neighbors down the street can get FiOS, but I'm just barely on the other side of the line-- no. You can't get FiOS in my zip code. You can't even get it in my neighboring zipcodes.
...that is then projected into a 2D representation for display on the monitor, that is then transformed by my brain back into a 3D representation, and then further needs to be transformed into a 4D object...
Except that it's a 2D representation that is interpreted by your brain as a 3D representation, which is then put into motion in movie form, making it essentially a 4 dimensional representation already, which you're then being asked to imagine extending into yet another (5th) dimension.
I agree with you, but in my opinion the real problem is that these nags are centralized.
Sorry, the real problem is that these nags are *not* centralized. If they were centralized into one update application, the situation would be better.
I agree with you, but in my opinion the real problem is that these nags are centralized. Adobe has their own, JRE has its own, and often each application has its own. It seems to me like it's a waste of development for each vendor to be creating their own, a waste of system resources to have a bunch of different update applications running in the background, and a general annoyance to the user to have 50 different things popping up saying "update me now".
OS vendors should really be developing their own update mechanisms that can be extended to 3rd parties, and then encouraging 3rd parties to use them. This is actually one place where Linux package managers really shine. As a Debian user, I really like it when installing new 3rd-party software is as easy as adding a new repository. Once everything is in place (and it's added to my sources), I can update all of my software using apt.
And notice that in this setup, it doesn't require the OS vendor (Debian in this case) to host or endorse the 3rd party applications. All it requires is that the user approves searching an additional source for updates. I think Apple should consider doing this in their Software Update, and Microsoft in their Windows Update. They've already extended them to update their own applications, so it'd just be opening that system to additional 3rd-party sources. For security's sake, they should make sure there are good protections against unauthorized additions to the list of sources, and they should provide a good method to remove them once added.
Then you could schedule it all yourself, and have one single thing pop up saying, "These are the updates available for your system right now. Which would you like to install?"
Yeah, thats pretty much how smart people setup windows too. Its easier in Vista, because you can either just let them use the UAC approval prompts for elevation, or still use two accounts. It basically works exactly the same as you describe.
Yeah, I'd still set up two accounts. Not necessarily for myself-- When setting up Windows for myself, even then I used to set up two accounts and run my day-to-day applications with admin rights, but with an OS that prompts me for a password (Linux, OSX, Vista) I'll just pay attention to the prompts. But that's because I'm careful and pretty well know what I'm doing.
But for someone else, I'd probably still give them two separate logins. Part of the point, in my opinion, is to drill it into people's head that doing things that require admin access should require special actions. It should require that they deliberately set out to accomplish something, and not just hit "ok".
Explain to me what 'basic applications running without admin rights' has to do with the OS? You've been able to run windows as non-admin quite effectively since the windows 2000 days.
Um... no? I was working helpdesk when 2000 was released, and that's not true. It got to be, after a few years, that it was feasible to run 2000 without admin rights. Even then it took work. But when they were first released, even Office 2000 used to require admin rights when installed on Windows 2000. That instance, at least, was Microsoft's fault, and to me it demonstrates that Microsoft just wasn't thinking about security.
The problem was that, even when Windows 2000 was released, Microsoft was expecting people to generally be running as admin. Everything about the design encouraged this behavior, and nothing discouraged it. All Windows NT (and 2000) did was make it theoretically possible to set up a secure system, but it didn't make it easy, and it didn't make it the default. It effectively required you comb through files, adjusting permissions one at a time, giving write access to particular files and folders in your program and system folders. It was an awful experience.
There are all sorts of choices in OS design that can encourage developers to do things the right way, and discourage them from doing them in bad way. This is especially true if the OS vendor creates/controls one of the major development environments for their OS. So you can't just blame developers.
Vista has some big steps in the right direction. I very much like the idea of something like UAC. I could quibble over the implementation, but won't do that here. The point is that, by throwing up a prompt whenever admin rights are required, they're discouraging application developers from using admin rights.
The difference is that unlike a top, the climate will eventually begin to restabilize.
A top will also restabilize-- when it eventually comes to rest on its side.
Just sayin'.
The file was writable only by root, so of course, I "sudo gedit", made the change, and saved it. And I have no idea what that change does. I'm just trusting my friend not to screw me over because that's the path of least resistance. ...[snip]... There's simply no fix for stupid/lazy users. I'm stupid and lazy when it comes to Ubuntu.
Then you shouldn't be given the ability to run sudo on any box of any consequence. It's that simple. If someone is setting up a computer for you, they should put you in the sudoers file either, or else limit your sudo actions to things you'll actually do.
I don't mean that to be offensive or to bad-mouth you, but it's just that... well, you're right. Lots of people are lazy and/or "stupid" (you may as well say "ignorant" or "careless"), and there is no security system that can stop a lazy/stupid user from compromising the system if they're given sufficient rights. So the answer is generally to not give them sufficient rights.
Of course, this gets complicated when you're talking about the owner of a PC. Still, when I set those sorts of people up, I give them 2 accounts: one with admin access, one without admin access. I give them lots of warnings that the admin account is dangerous, and that they should only need the admin account for installing new software, and I tell them not to install software they don't need. That won't stop someone who won't follow that advice, but at least it puts the idea in their head that not everyone should have admin rights all the time, and that installing software is dangerous.
Of course, making this distinction is easier when you're running an OS that allows you to run basic applications without admin rights.
If it comes to it (perhaps because someone gains root access to my box and locks me out), I can simply reformat and reinstall Ubuntu.
Why would a hacker bother to lock you out of your box after gaining root access? All that does is let you know that you've been hacked. What you have to worry about is someone setting up camp on your computer and continuing to be able to read or alter your data at will without you knowing.
It would end creativity. No one would write boks, or movies or take pictures of any quality.
Of course, if you end copyright, you end creativity. No one would ever write a book or compose music or take pictures unless they were getting paid. I know I don't write anything ever and just post it on the Internet for free. Every time I take a picture, I expect to sell it. Certainly no music or books were written before copyright was invented. And if you really want creative work, the best thing to do is consolidate all distribution into a few huge companies.
</sarcasm> The truth is, people *LOVE* to do this shit. If you made music illegal, people would write it in secret and run underground night clubs to perform it. Just try to stop people from engaging in the creative arts-- you'll fail.
Now I'm not saying that copyright doesn't serve a purpose, but it's purpose is not to keep creativity from "ending".
Most of those features are syntactic sugar that makes the language more comfortable to Java programmers.
IANAProgrammer, but isn't that worth something? By which I mean, if you want to create a robust platform, doesn't it make some sense to create an environment where developers are comfortable?
Maybe it seems petty, but I would think that there was some value in allowing programmers to choose which language they wanted to use, so they could use whatever was comfortable for them.
Mind you, I'm not a *huge* fan of the browser-as-a-platform idea. It seems to me that browsers were originally designed to be viewers, and it shows. There's a need for a strict/secure viewer with no security holes, and there's a need for a cross-platform application framework based on client/server interaction. I'm still not sure I understand why they have to be the same program, and I'm not quite convinced that they should be the same program. But I guess I'm just on a wild tangent.
It seems to me like it depends on the job and it depends on the worker. Not all jobs can be measured well by "generating X amount of work". Sometimes the issue really is having someone standing by, available for when you need them.
And then, also, some of those people who spend half the day playing solitaire would spend 90% of their day playing solitaire if their boss didn't walk by now and then. Ignoring the problem of jobs where efficacy is hard to measure, you still need someone to come up with measurements, and then to spend time analyzing the metrics you collect.
To put it another way, let's assume for the sake of argument that every job can be measured well by objective statistical measurements, and also that those measurements can be taken remotely from a telecommuter. You still need a system for collecting and verifying those measurements. Then, on top of that, you need managers who can understand that data, identify problems, and rectify those problems remotely.
That sounds pretty simple if you're imagining a job where you can just mark someone as an "underachiever" and fire them if they don't shape up, but management is often a bit more complicated. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and part of a manager's job is knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the members of his team. It's often not realistic to fire/replace someone when you see a weakness, because you'll just replace them with a different worker who has different weaknesses. Instead, you either have to position them so that their weakness isn't detrimental, or else try to help them grow and overcome that weakness. That would be pretty hard to do remotely.
So what I'm saying is, even in the best case scenario, it could make things very difficult to manage. The result is that you might be putting a lot of faith in the ability of the managers. Is that something you want to do?
Copyright law exist to protect the original author from abuses, so that the result of their hard working and sweating aren't used without proper compensation.
And part of how it's supposed to accomplish that is by protecting publishers from having other publishers poach their investment.
In order for the author to get compensation, some publisher has to pay him (traditionally, at least). So let's say publisher A pays the author and invests money in getting the work edited properly, and then publisher B gets a copy of the final work and starts printing/selling it. Imagine what would happen if that were allowed. Suddenly there would be absolutely no economic incentive for publisher A to invest money in paying the author and developing the idea. Suddenly the authors stop getting paid.
There are possible issues regarding an advantage, but I was also under the impression that the rules were (at least partially) there to help protect children from crazy training and undue pressure.
Whatever the case, rules are rules, and the IOC should give out whatever punishment is due. I would assume that some specific action is dictated by their rules in cases where this particular rule has been shown to be broken?
Now if only they could make these peripherals work across platforms. Aren't they all USB and bluetooth anyway?