I can't figure out what the exact angle is, but it just seems too strange for legitimate developers to "innocently" make such a boneheaded mistake.
I'm just throwing it out there, but could it be something like: The developer thought he'd be clever by downloading a pirated/hacked version of OS X that runs on non-Apple hardware. The hacked version either then downloads a hacked version of Xcode, or won't allow a legit installation of Xcode so that the developer is forced to pirate that, too.
I don't know, just I'm hypothesizing. If it's not something like that, then I have a hard time figuring out how an iOS developer could unintentionally install a fake version. Unless... I don't know, maybe someone rigged Chinese search engines so that when you search for "Xcode", the top hits point to illegitimate sources?
how about adding an extra hidden recipient to all your emails? there's no way any security system is going to stop that.
How easy is that to do for someone other than the developer of the mail app? My understanding is that the apps are sandboxed in a way that wouldn't allow an easy route to alter how other apps worked.
(a) worthless shit that nobody would ever click on, except accidentally, or (b) outright scams and malware.
There's also a bunch that are somewhere between merely "worthless" and "malware". I've noticed a lot recently which seem to be targeted toward mobile devices, seeming to intentionally trick people on clicking. For example, I've noticed some which seem to load on a delay, either loading overtop of the page or causing the page to reformat itself when it loads, and loading itself directly when/where you would naturally click to begin scrolling down the page. On a technical level, I don't know what they're doing, but I've found myself more and more accidentally clicking on ads on my phone. Like a page loads, I start reading, and as soon as my thumb hits the screen, an ad appears under my thumb. I'm just trying to scroll, and suddenly it's loading some other page.
I wouldn't have gone looking for an ad-blocker in the first place if it weren't for those kinds of tactics.
I am among those who installed an adblocker immediately upon installing iOS9. It wasn't simply because I don't like looking at ads, as though it's an aesthetic decision. It's not because I'm somehow interested in "stealing" content. The problem is, over the past year or two, mobile internet access has become almost worthless half the time because the ads are so abusive toward the user.
I've seen reputable sites automatically redirect you to open a new browser tab on iOS to direct you to another page. I've seen others automatically open Apple's App store and bring you to some game or app as a form of advertisement. Sites will have ads that pop up in front of the page, blocking all content, with a little tiny "x" camouflaged into the ad so you can barely click it without clicking the ad. Whether it's intentional, ads often open after a short delay, causing the whole page to rerender, placing an ad directly where you were about to click.
If ads weren't such a huge PITA, then when I heard the iPhone was getting ad blockers, I'd probably be like, "meh, whatever" and not bother. I certainly wouldn't have paid money for an ad blocker. But as it is, I need an adblocker just to make my phone's web browser useful again.
I talked to some friends who bicycle in Portland (super bike friendly town)
I think part of the problem is, you're expecting consistent rules when dealing with inconsistent places. The rules you think are appropriate in a "super bike friendly town" may not work in a "not so bike friendly town". The reality is that, if you don't want to be killed, you can't rely on rules, and you can't expect drivers to abide by rules. Sometimes if I want to make a left turn, I have to pull up into the crosswalk, wait for a red light, ride across with the pedestrian traffic, and then continue on.
Is that legal according to "the real rules"? I don't know. I don't much care. My priority is to get from point A to point B without endangering myself or others.
"It's a strategic mistake. Sure, it'll make more money for Apple and won't actually tarnish their public reputation, but it will cause me to go sit in the corner and pout for a little while. I wouldn't buy an iPhone anyway because I hate Apple, but I'm frustrated because I can't figure out why, if the iPhone only has 16GB, people still aren't buying the Android device that I like?! It has more storage, and is therefore entirely superior."
What Apple does have though is a disproportionate amount of media coverage (both paid for advertising and articles), so perhaps that's skewing peoples perspectives?
Well Apple is also making a disproportionate amount of the profits. Essentially the iPhone is not very dominant in terms of market share, but it's still the market leader.
And everyone's saying "micro consoles don't sell well" - well what examples do you have?
Also the AppleTV has been selling well-- at least well enough that they keep selling it-- for several years now without playing games at all. When it started, it *only* played iTunes content. Now it plays HBO, Showtime, Hulu, Netflix, and an assortment of other content sources (including sports packages). I don't think adding a few games will hurt its sales.
This was pretty much my thought, too. I don't think the Apple TV will be a very good game platform, but I also don't think Apple is particularly trying to make it one. I think it's more like they're trying to make a good set-top box for consuming media. They can sell their own iTunes store content. They can allow HBO and Showtime to sell their content, and take a cut of those sales. By some accounts they're trying to broker a deal where they can provide a subscription service to allow access to live TV streaming. It also provides another output device for their iTunes Music service.
But the best way to make money from this platform will be to make it a full iOS platform, including 3rd party apps. That means you'll be putting in enough computing power to run 3D games-- not extremely high-end games, but iOS-like games. Now all you need is a sensible control scheme. So... why not run with it? It won't compete in the Xbox/Playstation market, but you might get some sales of casual games, party games, and maybe some action/adventure games.
Cyclists should really be queued up behind the cars in an intersection, not riding up alongside them.
That sounds like a terrible idea to me. Bicycles do not accelerate quickly, so putting a fully stopped bike in front of a car seems bad for the driver. Worse for the cyclist, now you have a frustrated driver behind you. Drivers are reckless and stupid and can't be trusted to begin with. Frustrate them, and it's like playing with a loaded weapon.
Plus, it doesn't make sense. If you're in a situation where bicycles are riding alongside cars, with the bikes not taking up a lane and cars being allowed to pass on the left, why should the cyclists suddenly have to take up a whole lane when you come to a stop? The two worst times for bicycles to be treated as car-traffic are "in fast-moving traffic" and "after coming to a full stop".
It's not for me, but as a IT guy, it'd be nice to be able to run Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office on Linux, since a large number of people at any given client live in those two office suites. Tell me about FOSS alternatives all you like, but telling 50 professional graphic designers that they need to switch from Photoshop to the GIMP is only going to get me fired from that client.
It'd also be nice if the UI looked nice and professional, didn't include garish greens, pinks, or oranges as the primary colors. Also, ideally the GUI will hide most of the unsightly filesystem. Do Linux distros still have problems with proper text kerning?
I know, it's all superficial stupid shit that you don't care about. My clients, though... they don't care what compiler or bootloader their OS uses. They want something that's pleasant looking, easy to work with, and had Photoshop and Outlook. It's hard to get around.
That isn't true. Pedestrians ARE supposed to stop at traffic lights, stop at stop signs, etc.
Don't be stupid. Pedestrians are supposed to follow pedestrian traffic signals, which may be different from those directing traffic. In some places, they even have separate bicycle traffic lights. Pedestrians are not required to stop at red lights that are directing cars. You can have a red light at an intersection where pedestrians can continue to walk without even entering the road. On a more basic level, pedestrians are encouraged to travel on sidewalks, while this is not legal for cars.
Cyclists do not, for the most part, do this.
Ok, please provide some statistics for which traffic laws cyclists disobey, and at what rates, so we can discuss further.
Apple could also push out software updates that record all activity on all Apple devices, and forward all of that data to the FBI. It would probably be detected, but they COULD do that.
But that would just be blatantly unethical. And they're not Microsoft, so I don't expect them to do that anytime soon.
I would advise someone to be careful in proportion to their vulnerability. I would recommend that people be held responsible in proportion to their ability to do damage.
I reach the end of the bike lane and I'm supposed to be waiting for the green light at the Advanced stop line/bike box. Except that 90% of the time, there is already a car in that box, because some drivers think that it's just a buffer area that they're free to use.
This is a good example. I personally favor a cyclist having the right to pass through red lights or stop signs, without necessarily coming to a complete stop, so long as they slow and check to see if anyone is coming. People have such a hard time with the idea, and I have a hard time explaining why I think it's appropriate. However, my reasons essentially boil down to this: I've have multiple situations where I don't think a car will see me, or I'm near a car that I believe will put my in danger, or I'm near a car that I don't think will respect my being there, and I need some motion or a head start so that I'm not putting myself in danger.
I think maybe it depends on where you live, what kind of infrastructure there is, and what the drivers are doing. However, I think drivers often get frustrated by the fact of a cyclist being on a road. They'll drive recklessly around you out of inattention, frustration/aggression, or sometimes because they don't want you to get in front of them and possibly slow them down. Whatever the reason, I've seen some reckless bullshit on the road that has almost gotten me killed, even when I'm being very safe. I once even had a guy in an SUV at a stop light back into me, apparently not bothering to look into his rear view mirror before backing up, though maybe he did and was just thinking, "fuck this guy on his stupid bike!"
But whatever. The point is, if I have to choose between going before the light turns green and getting myself killed, I'm going. I don't think the law should oppose that.
If the infrastructure is for cars, then a cyclist or pedestrian has a hard time being law abiding.
And I think this is a good point. I live in NYC and walk all over the place. I (and I think most people who live here) treat crossing signals more as suggestions than binding law. And there's a good reason for this. If I just cross blindly when then signal says I can, I will probably get hit by a car. I can't trust it at all. On the other hand, the sign might say "don't walk" when I can see a few blocks down the street and see that absolutely nobody is coming. After a while of taking "walk" as a suggestion that can't be trusted and knowing that it tells you "don't walk" when you clearly can, you just take the whole thing as a suggestion, and you just treat the whole thing as-- I was going to say "a guideline", but not even that. It's a dumb automated system offering its input as to when it's safe to walk, when it clearly has no idea. You walk when you can tell that it's safe to walk.
And that's at least partially because the whole system was built for cars. The roads were built for cars, the stoplights, for cars. The pedestrian crosswalk signs were just built to signal when the cars are supposed to be stopping anyway, but they're not really build for pedestrians, as though they're providing any special accommodation.
How about, a pedestrian can't afford to be an idiot, because if he steps in front of a truck he's meat.
Yes, great. So how about we just children grenade launchers. Then we can't afford to be child abusers, because if you abuse your 5 year old, he'll shoot you with a grenade.
Or maybe that's not such a good idea. Maybe you shouldn't give dangerous contraptions to people who can't handle them responsibly, because just like a 5 year old with a grenade launcher, there's no telling who a reckless truck driver is going to kill. They might kill themselves, or an idiot pedestrian, or a responsible pedestrian, or a family in a minivan.
What about the idiots on bikes that endager pedestrians?
Yes, those people too have more responsibility than pedestrians. they're going faster and can do more damage than a pedestrian walking into you. They're heavier too, but not by much. They do go faster, and those guys who get up to 35 miles per hour or something, those guys should really be careful.
However, most commuter cyclists are going, what, 10 miles per hour? It's like a person sprinting. If the amount of damage you can do in a car is rated 100 and and pedestrians are rated a 1, then most cyclists should be rated a 2 or 3. The level of stupidity involved in being reckless on a bike is nothing compared to the stupidity of being reckless in a car. Until we can recognize this, I don't see any sensible conversation coming out of this. People get all fired up about every infraction they see on a bicycle because they assume cyclists are smug, while they ignore the massive stupidity of motorists because motorists are just "normal people".
As an aside, as someone who walks frequently and rides occasionally, I can say that I also get frustrated by the sense of entitlement that cyclists sometimes have. But it's a bit silly to think that pedestrians aren't also being stupid and entitled. I've seen pedestrians walk into crosswalks when they don't have the light, and just expect cyclists to stop anyway. I once had a couple push their baby stroller out into the bike lane I was riding in, about 4 feet ahead of me passing, when they didn't have the light. They just seemed to think that of course a bicycle should stop for their baby, neglecting the fact that I almost fell off my bicycle trying to stop in time, and ignoring the danger they were putting their baby in for no reason. I wanted to smack them-- not for my sake, but for almost forcing me to injure a child.
All of these people suck. But if they're going to be reckless, let them walk. Take away the driver's license. At least it'll greatly reduce the chances they'll kill anyone.
On the other hand, there really should be different rules of traffic for cyclists than for cars. I'm not saying there should be no rules, or that cyclists shouldn't follow the rules, but the rules should just be different. What a cyclist can see and hear is different from someone driving. The acceleration profile is different. The top speed is different, as is the amount of damage they can do. Riding a bicycle safely requires a different set of behaviors than driving safely.
We don't expect pedestrians to follow the same laws as cars. Let's not pretend that cars and bikes aren't on different footing.
I think it's less about who's an idiot, and more about who has what share of the responsibility. It seems sensible to me to think that the level of responsibility you should take for your actions scales with the amount to damage your actions can do. A pedestrian can afford to be an idiot-- if he runs into someone, he probably won't kill them. A truck driver, on the other hand, can easily kill a handful of people with one mistake.
So there are idiots among all of those groups? Fine. I don't disagree. But take away the licenses of the idiots among the drivers. If we can't stop them from being idiots, the least we can do is minimize the damage they do by making them walk.
Offer some real management tools, don't require an Apple account to do everything on your computers, etc, etc, etc.
Or honestly, you know, just... fix the broken crap. Take all the stuff that Apple does offer for business, and fix the bugs.
Like take care of the bugs in Mail that cause it to not sync properly when mailboxes hit a certain size. Fix the bugs with Open Directory, Profile Manager, and mobile user account syncing. Speed up access to file servers, and fix the SMB problems that cause files to become locked and Finder to crash. Some of these problems have existed for years, and they're just not getting fixed.
If they can lock that down, here are some more things they can do: Start supporting server hardware again. If they don't want to make their own server hardware, just provide some licensing route to allow you to run OSX server on ESXi or HyperV on non-Apple servers. Throw some money into OSX server development. Either forget about providing email/calendar/contact/chat, or invest enough in it to make it competitive with Exchange and Google Apps. Integrate something like Munki or Casper to provide configuration management and updates for 3rd party applications.
They're want to partner with Cisco...? Fine. Partner with the Meraki division, and make co-branded Cisco/Meraki/Apple networking equipment. Create an integrated cloud management platform that manages routers, wireless access points, switches, servers, NAS devices, virtual machines, MDM, and really the whole network to be controlled from an single-pane-of-glass. Have Apple assist in the hardware and UI design, and integrate it with the now-fixed Profile Manager, Open Directory, and Munki functionality that's been added to OSX server. Then have it support Windows, too.
But of course, they're not going to do any of that. They won't do anything as mundane as fixing the bugs in the SMB support, and they won't do anything as ambitious as trying to make Mac OSX Server competitive with Windows or pushing cloud management forward. Instead, they're going to continue making incremental upgrades to their consumer-centric features while striking buzzword-friendly deals with Cisco and IBM to provide the illusion that they care about the Enterprise.
I would agree that Windows 95 is influential, but let's not go overboard. It's the first instance that I know of with the "taskbar" along the bottom including a main menu button on the lower-left, which has become a very common arrangement. However, it's largely become an arrangement common to desktop environments attempting to mimic Windows in order to be approachable to Windows users. It's not the arrangement of all operating systems.
Claiming that OSX is copying the task bar with its dock is a bit of an overstatement. Various environments had different permutations of a "dock" concept, including NeXTSTEP, the forerunner to OSX. I think BeOS and Amiga also had docks of sort, though I admit I haven't seen any of these operating systems in action and I don't remember exactly what they looked like back in 1995. Also, the way the Apple dock operates is significantly different from the Windows task bar, and arguably the Windows 10 taskbar takes some things from Apple's dock.
Part way through the article, there's a big quote that says, "Without Windows 95 there would be no Steam or XBox and we would still be playing Pong." That's just nonsense. I mean, it's true there might not be steam or XBox, in that Steam was originally developed for Windows and XBox is a Microsoft program. However, we wouldn't still by playing Pong. There were more advanced games than Pong before Windows 95, and it's not as though people wouldn't have continued to develop video consoles and video games. In the end, he wraps things up by arguing that Windows 95 was just so amazingly good that it pushed everyone out of the market, as though Microsoft's monopoly was a good thing that was achieved purely through the quality of the product.
Honestly, I don't know if this author is a bit dim or ignorant, or if the author is intentionally pushing a false narrative, but this article is pretty bad. Obviously Windows 95 had a big impact on the computing industry and the operating systems that came afterwards. I wouldn't argue against that. Still, let's not pretend that it was a wonderful product that took over the world by being the best thing ever, and let's not pretend that everything that came after is simply copying Windows 95. It was a relatively crappy operating system that became dominant because Microsoft was largely already dominant, and there wasn't really anything much better at the time. Microsoft had already squashed a lot of their competitors, and continued to do so with anti-competitive practices.
We spend a lot of time on the trial of Galileo and how we know the Earth goes around the Sun. It's far harder to show than most people think.
I sometimes cite a similar example of Ptolemy. People too often thing the Ptolemaic model is stupid, but really it's very good at predicting the phenomena that people at the time would experience. Ptolemy wasn't stupid. IIRC, he seems to notice that the epicycles line up so that the centers seem to coincide. He even cites the example of being on a boat, watching the shore recede away when really the ship is moving, the way that motion seems relative to the observer, and relates this to the possibility that the earth is moving. He just doesn't have a firm reason to think that the earth is moving.
It's easy now, in hindsight, to see that Newton's model is much better. It especially makes sense once you've had the opportunity to get up onto the moon and some other planets, and you know for a fact that they're made of the same material that Earth is made of. But then, even Newton's model isn't quite right, and a lot of physics these days ultimately come down to, "We don't really understand why things work the way that they do, and some of our rules don't seem to apply the same way at all times and at all levels, but we know enough to do most of the things we're trying to do." On a deep level, we still don't understand how time and space work.
(and we tend not to prosecute when we do, a different problem)
But maybe that's actually the big problem. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer, certainly not one expert in this field, but the general perception that I have (and I think that the public has) is that if I were a CEO, I could order criminally negligent actions by my company, have a paper trail detailing my orders, and still nothing bad would happen to me. My company might get fined, but in my worst-case scenario as CEO, I'd probably walk away with a golden parachute.
From the things I've heard about, I almost feel like... If I dumped poison into someone's drinking well, and they die, I'll get charged with murder or at least manslaughter. If I'm a CEO and I knowingly order people in my company to dump poisons into the ground water, thereby poisoning a bunch of wells and 30 people die, then my company settles for several million dollars and I walk away scot-free.
Now, that might be a problem with enforcement rather than the law on the books. Or it might actually be a problem with perception, with how these kinds of disasters are reported, and that I'm not getting a clear picture. However, somehow, something's wrong here, and it seems like it's important to fix it.
I'd be willing to bet that nobody in the company did anything specifically illegal in handling personal information, but that top management demanded results with low costs, basically excluding security, and the workers did what they could with the resources allocated.
Well whether someone did something "specifically illegal" is very dependent on whether there's a law against it. If I leave a bomb in a school playground, whether that action is "specifically illegal" is a question as to whether there's a law against that, but that shouldn't stop us from asking whether it should be illegal. So part of what we're talking about here is not just whether the people at Ashley Madison have done something currently specifically illegal, but whether they did anything so reckless that it ought to be illegal.
I don't particularly know the answer to that. I don't know all the details about how this leak happened, what the laws are, or what the laws should be. However, I do have a feeling that when something like this happens, there should be a government investigation that determines whether there was some wrongdoing that lead to the leak. And further, if there was wrongdoing by an individual, I don't think they should have some kind of individual punishment.
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I can't figure out what the exact angle is, but it just seems too strange for legitimate developers to "innocently" make such a boneheaded mistake.
I'm just throwing it out there, but could it be something like: The developer thought he'd be clever by downloading a pirated/hacked version of OS X that runs on non-Apple hardware. The hacked version either then downloads a hacked version of Xcode, or won't allow a legit installation of Xcode so that the developer is forced to pirate that, too.
I don't know, just I'm hypothesizing. If it's not something like that, then I have a hard time figuring out how an iOS developer could unintentionally install a fake version. Unless... I don't know, maybe someone rigged Chinese search engines so that when you search for "Xcode", the top hits point to illegitimate sources?
how about adding an extra hidden recipient to all your emails? there's no way any security system is going to stop that.
How easy is that to do for someone other than the developer of the mail app? My understanding is that the apps are sandboxed in a way that wouldn't allow an easy route to alter how other apps worked.
(a) worthless shit that nobody would ever click on, except accidentally, or (b) outright scams and malware.
There's also a bunch that are somewhere between merely "worthless" and "malware". I've noticed a lot recently which seem to be targeted toward mobile devices, seeming to intentionally trick people on clicking. For example, I've noticed some which seem to load on a delay, either loading overtop of the page or causing the page to reformat itself when it loads, and loading itself directly when/where you would naturally click to begin scrolling down the page. On a technical level, I don't know what they're doing, but I've found myself more and more accidentally clicking on ads on my phone. Like a page loads, I start reading, and as soon as my thumb hits the screen, an ad appears under my thumb. I'm just trying to scroll, and suddenly it's loading some other page.
I wouldn't have gone looking for an ad-blocker in the first place if it weren't for those kinds of tactics.
I am among those who installed an adblocker immediately upon installing iOS9. It wasn't simply because I don't like looking at ads, as though it's an aesthetic decision. It's not because I'm somehow interested in "stealing" content. The problem is, over the past year or two, mobile internet access has become almost worthless half the time because the ads are so abusive toward the user.
I've seen reputable sites automatically redirect you to open a new browser tab on iOS to direct you to another page. I've seen others automatically open Apple's App store and bring you to some game or app as a form of advertisement. Sites will have ads that pop up in front of the page, blocking all content, with a little tiny "x" camouflaged into the ad so you can barely click it without clicking the ad. Whether it's intentional, ads often open after a short delay, causing the whole page to rerender, placing an ad directly where you were about to click.
If ads weren't such a huge PITA, then when I heard the iPhone was getting ad blockers, I'd probably be like, "meh, whatever" and not bother. I certainly wouldn't have paid money for an ad blocker. But as it is, I need an adblocker just to make my phone's web browser useful again.
I talked to some friends who bicycle in Portland (super bike friendly town)
I think part of the problem is, you're expecting consistent rules when dealing with inconsistent places. The rules you think are appropriate in a "super bike friendly town" may not work in a "not so bike friendly town". The reality is that, if you don't want to be killed, you can't rely on rules, and you can't expect drivers to abide by rules. Sometimes if I want to make a left turn, I have to pull up into the crosswalk, wait for a red light, ride across with the pedestrian traffic, and then continue on.
Is that legal according to "the real rules"? I don't know. I don't much care. My priority is to get from point A to point B without endangering myself or others.
"It's a strategic mistake. Sure, it'll make more money for Apple and won't actually tarnish their public reputation, but it will cause me to go sit in the corner and pout for a little while. I wouldn't buy an iPhone anyway because I hate Apple, but I'm frustrated because I can't figure out why, if the iPhone only has 16GB, people still aren't buying the Android device that I like?! It has more storage, and is therefore entirely superior."
What Apple does have though is a disproportionate amount of media coverage (both paid for advertising and articles), so perhaps that's skewing peoples perspectives?
Well Apple is also making a disproportionate amount of the profits. Essentially the iPhone is not very dominant in terms of market share, but it's still the market leader.
And everyone's saying "micro consoles don't sell well" - well what examples do you have?
Also the AppleTV has been selling well-- at least well enough that they keep selling it-- for several years now without playing games at all. When it started, it *only* played iTunes content. Now it plays HBO, Showtime, Hulu, Netflix, and an assortment of other content sources (including sports packages). I don't think adding a few games will hurt its sales.
This was pretty much my thought, too. I don't think the Apple TV will be a very good game platform, but I also don't think Apple is particularly trying to make it one. I think it's more like they're trying to make a good set-top box for consuming media. They can sell their own iTunes store content. They can allow HBO and Showtime to sell their content, and take a cut of those sales. By some accounts they're trying to broker a deal where they can provide a subscription service to allow access to live TV streaming. It also provides another output device for their iTunes Music service.
But the best way to make money from this platform will be to make it a full iOS platform, including 3rd party apps. That means you'll be putting in enough computing power to run 3D games-- not extremely high-end games, but iOS-like games. Now all you need is a sensible control scheme. So... why not run with it? It won't compete in the Xbox/Playstation market, but you might get some sales of casual games, party games, and maybe some action/adventure games.
Cyclists should really be queued up behind the cars in an intersection, not riding up alongside them.
That sounds like a terrible idea to me. Bicycles do not accelerate quickly, so putting a fully stopped bike in front of a car seems bad for the driver. Worse for the cyclist, now you have a frustrated driver behind you. Drivers are reckless and stupid and can't be trusted to begin with. Frustrate them, and it's like playing with a loaded weapon.
Plus, it doesn't make sense. If you're in a situation where bicycles are riding alongside cars, with the bikes not taking up a lane and cars being allowed to pass on the left, why should the cyclists suddenly have to take up a whole lane when you come to a stop? The two worst times for bicycles to be treated as car-traffic are "in fast-moving traffic" and "after coming to a full stop".
It's not for me, but as a IT guy, it'd be nice to be able to run Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office on Linux, since a large number of people at any given client live in those two office suites. Tell me about FOSS alternatives all you like, but telling 50 professional graphic designers that they need to switch from Photoshop to the GIMP is only going to get me fired from that client.
It'd also be nice if the UI looked nice and professional, didn't include garish greens, pinks, or oranges as the primary colors. Also, ideally the GUI will hide most of the unsightly filesystem. Do Linux distros still have problems with proper text kerning?
I know, it's all superficial stupid shit that you don't care about. My clients, though... they don't care what compiler or bootloader their OS uses. They want something that's pleasant looking, easy to work with, and had Photoshop and Outlook. It's hard to get around.
That isn't true. Pedestrians ARE supposed to stop at traffic lights, stop at stop signs, etc.
Don't be stupid. Pedestrians are supposed to follow pedestrian traffic signals, which may be different from those directing traffic. In some places, they even have separate bicycle traffic lights. Pedestrians are not required to stop at red lights that are directing cars. You can have a red light at an intersection where pedestrians can continue to walk without even entering the road. On a more basic level, pedestrians are encouraged to travel on sidewalks, while this is not legal for cars.
Cyclists do not, for the most part, do this.
Ok, please provide some statistics for which traffic laws cyclists disobey, and at what rates, so we can discuss further.
Apple could also push out software updates that record all activity on all Apple devices, and forward all of that data to the FBI. It would probably be detected, but they COULD do that.
But that would just be blatantly unethical. And they're not Microsoft, so I don't expect them to do that anytime soon.
I would advise someone to be careful in proportion to their vulnerability. I would recommend that people be held responsible in proportion to their ability to do damage.
I reach the end of the bike lane and I'm supposed to be waiting for the green light at the Advanced stop line/bike box. Except that 90% of the time, there is already a car in that box, because some drivers think that it's just a buffer area that they're free to use.
This is a good example. I personally favor a cyclist having the right to pass through red lights or stop signs, without necessarily coming to a complete stop, so long as they slow and check to see if anyone is coming. People have such a hard time with the idea, and I have a hard time explaining why I think it's appropriate. However, my reasons essentially boil down to this: I've have multiple situations where I don't think a car will see me, or I'm near a car that I believe will put my in danger, or I'm near a car that I don't think will respect my being there, and I need some motion or a head start so that I'm not putting myself in danger.
I think maybe it depends on where you live, what kind of infrastructure there is, and what the drivers are doing. However, I think drivers often get frustrated by the fact of a cyclist being on a road. They'll drive recklessly around you out of inattention, frustration/aggression, or sometimes because they don't want you to get in front of them and possibly slow them down. Whatever the reason, I've seen some reckless bullshit on the road that has almost gotten me killed, even when I'm being very safe. I once even had a guy in an SUV at a stop light back into me, apparently not bothering to look into his rear view mirror before backing up, though maybe he did and was just thinking, "fuck this guy on his stupid bike!"
But whatever. The point is, if I have to choose between going before the light turns green and getting myself killed, I'm going. I don't think the law should oppose that.
If the infrastructure is for cars, then a cyclist or pedestrian has a hard time being law abiding.
And I think this is a good point. I live in NYC and walk all over the place. I (and I think most people who live here) treat crossing signals more as suggestions than binding law. And there's a good reason for this. If I just cross blindly when then signal says I can, I will probably get hit by a car. I can't trust it at all. On the other hand, the sign might say "don't walk" when I can see a few blocks down the street and see that absolutely nobody is coming. After a while of taking "walk" as a suggestion that can't be trusted and knowing that it tells you "don't walk" when you clearly can, you just take the whole thing as a suggestion, and you just treat the whole thing as-- I was going to say "a guideline", but not even that. It's a dumb automated system offering its input as to when it's safe to walk, when it clearly has no idea. You walk when you can tell that it's safe to walk.
And that's at least partially because the whole system was built for cars. The roads were built for cars, the stoplights, for cars. The pedestrian crosswalk signs were just built to signal when the cars are supposed to be stopping anyway, but they're not really build for pedestrians, as though they're providing any special accommodation.
How about, a pedestrian can't afford to be an idiot, because if he steps in front of a truck he's meat.
Yes, great. So how about we just children grenade launchers. Then we can't afford to be child abusers, because if you abuse your 5 year old, he'll shoot you with a grenade.
Or maybe that's not such a good idea. Maybe you shouldn't give dangerous contraptions to people who can't handle them responsibly, because just like a 5 year old with a grenade launcher, there's no telling who a reckless truck driver is going to kill. They might kill themselves, or an idiot pedestrian, or a responsible pedestrian, or a family in a minivan.
What about the idiots on bikes that endager pedestrians?
Yes, those people too have more responsibility than pedestrians. they're going faster and can do more damage than a pedestrian walking into you. They're heavier too, but not by much. They do go faster, and those guys who get up to 35 miles per hour or something, those guys should really be careful.
However, most commuter cyclists are going, what, 10 miles per hour? It's like a person sprinting. If the amount of damage you can do in a car is rated 100 and and pedestrians are rated a 1, then most cyclists should be rated a 2 or 3. The level of stupidity involved in being reckless on a bike is nothing compared to the stupidity of being reckless in a car. Until we can recognize this, I don't see any sensible conversation coming out of this. People get all fired up about every infraction they see on a bicycle because they assume cyclists are smug, while they ignore the massive stupidity of motorists because motorists are just "normal people".
As an aside, as someone who walks frequently and rides occasionally, I can say that I also get frustrated by the sense of entitlement that cyclists sometimes have. But it's a bit silly to think that pedestrians aren't also being stupid and entitled. I've seen pedestrians walk into crosswalks when they don't have the light, and just expect cyclists to stop anyway. I once had a couple push their baby stroller out into the bike lane I was riding in, about 4 feet ahead of me passing, when they didn't have the light. They just seemed to think that of course a bicycle should stop for their baby, neglecting the fact that I almost fell off my bicycle trying to stop in time, and ignoring the danger they were putting their baby in for no reason. I wanted to smack them-- not for my sake, but for almost forcing me to injure a child.
All of these people suck. But if they're going to be reckless, let them walk. Take away the driver's license. At least it'll greatly reduce the chances they'll kill anyone.
The iPad Air 9 isn't likely to be available in the next month or so.
On the other hand, there really should be different rules of traffic for cyclists than for cars. I'm not saying there should be no rules, or that cyclists shouldn't follow the rules, but the rules should just be different. What a cyclist can see and hear is different from someone driving. The acceleration profile is different. The top speed is different, as is the amount of damage they can do. Riding a bicycle safely requires a different set of behaviors than driving safely.
We don't expect pedestrians to follow the same laws as cars. Let's not pretend that cars and bikes aren't on different footing.
I think it's less about who's an idiot, and more about who has what share of the responsibility. It seems sensible to me to think that the level of responsibility you should take for your actions scales with the amount to damage your actions can do. A pedestrian can afford to be an idiot-- if he runs into someone, he probably won't kill them. A truck driver, on the other hand, can easily kill a handful of people with one mistake.
So there are idiots among all of those groups? Fine. I don't disagree. But take away the licenses of the idiots among the drivers. If we can't stop them from being idiots, the least we can do is minimize the damage they do by making them walk.
Offer some real management tools, don't require an Apple account to do everything on your computers, etc, etc, etc.
Or honestly, you know, just... fix the broken crap. Take all the stuff that Apple does offer for business, and fix the bugs.
Like take care of the bugs in Mail that cause it to not sync properly when mailboxes hit a certain size. Fix the bugs with Open Directory, Profile Manager, and mobile user account syncing. Speed up access to file servers, and fix the SMB problems that cause files to become locked and Finder to crash. Some of these problems have existed for years, and they're just not getting fixed.
If they can lock that down, here are some more things they can do: Start supporting server hardware again. If they don't want to make their own server hardware, just provide some licensing route to allow you to run OSX server on ESXi or HyperV on non-Apple servers. Throw some money into OSX server development. Either forget about providing email/calendar/contact/chat, or invest enough in it to make it competitive with Exchange and Google Apps. Integrate something like Munki or Casper to provide configuration management and updates for 3rd party applications.
They're want to partner with Cisco...? Fine. Partner with the Meraki division, and make co-branded Cisco/Meraki/Apple networking equipment. Create an integrated cloud management platform that manages routers, wireless access points, switches, servers, NAS devices, virtual machines, MDM, and really the whole network to be controlled from an single-pane-of-glass. Have Apple assist in the hardware and UI design, and integrate it with the now-fixed Profile Manager, Open Directory, and Munki functionality that's been added to OSX server. Then have it support Windows, too.
But of course, they're not going to do any of that. They won't do anything as mundane as fixing the bugs in the SMB support, and they won't do anything as ambitious as trying to make Mac OSX Server competitive with Windows or pushing cloud management forward. Instead, they're going to continue making incremental upgrades to their consumer-centric features while striking buzzword-friendly deals with Cisco and IBM to provide the illusion that they care about the Enterprise.
I would agree that Windows 95 is influential, but let's not go overboard. It's the first instance that I know of with the "taskbar" along the bottom including a main menu button on the lower-left, which has become a very common arrangement. However, it's largely become an arrangement common to desktop environments attempting to mimic Windows in order to be approachable to Windows users. It's not the arrangement of all operating systems.
Claiming that OSX is copying the task bar with its dock is a bit of an overstatement. Various environments had different permutations of a "dock" concept, including NeXTSTEP, the forerunner to OSX. I think BeOS and Amiga also had docks of sort, though I admit I haven't seen any of these operating systems in action and I don't remember exactly what they looked like back in 1995. Also, the way the Apple dock operates is significantly different from the Windows task bar, and arguably the Windows 10 taskbar takes some things from Apple's dock.
Part way through the article, there's a big quote that says, "Without Windows 95 there would be no Steam or XBox and we would still be playing Pong." That's just nonsense. I mean, it's true there might not be steam or XBox, in that Steam was originally developed for Windows and XBox is a Microsoft program. However, we wouldn't still by playing Pong. There were more advanced games than Pong before Windows 95, and it's not as though people wouldn't have continued to develop video consoles and video games. In the end, he wraps things up by arguing that Windows 95 was just so amazingly good that it pushed everyone out of the market, as though Microsoft's monopoly was a good thing that was achieved purely through the quality of the product.
Honestly, I don't know if this author is a bit dim or ignorant, or if the author is intentionally pushing a false narrative, but this article is pretty bad. Obviously Windows 95 had a big impact on the computing industry and the operating systems that came afterwards. I wouldn't argue against that. Still, let's not pretend that it was a wonderful product that took over the world by being the best thing ever, and let's not pretend that everything that came after is simply copying Windows 95. It was a relatively crappy operating system that became dominant because Microsoft was largely already dominant, and there wasn't really anything much better at the time. Microsoft had already squashed a lot of their competitors, and continued to do so with anti-competitive practices.
We spend a lot of time on the trial of Galileo and how we know the Earth goes around the Sun. It's far harder to show than most people think.
I sometimes cite a similar example of Ptolemy. People too often thing the Ptolemaic model is stupid, but really it's very good at predicting the phenomena that people at the time would experience. Ptolemy wasn't stupid. IIRC, he seems to notice that the epicycles line up so that the centers seem to coincide. He even cites the example of being on a boat, watching the shore recede away when really the ship is moving, the way that motion seems relative to the observer, and relates this to the possibility that the earth is moving. He just doesn't have a firm reason to think that the earth is moving.
It's easy now, in hindsight, to see that Newton's model is much better. It especially makes sense once you've had the opportunity to get up onto the moon and some other planets, and you know for a fact that they're made of the same material that Earth is made of. But then, even Newton's model isn't quite right, and a lot of physics these days ultimately come down to, "We don't really understand why things work the way that they do, and some of our rules don't seem to apply the same way at all times and at all levels, but we know enough to do most of the things we're trying to do." On a deep level, we still don't understand how time and space work.
(and we tend not to prosecute when we do, a different problem)
But maybe that's actually the big problem. Like I said, I'm not a lawyer, certainly not one expert in this field, but the general perception that I have (and I think that the public has) is that if I were a CEO, I could order criminally negligent actions by my company, have a paper trail detailing my orders, and still nothing bad would happen to me. My company might get fined, but in my worst-case scenario as CEO, I'd probably walk away with a golden parachute.
From the things I've heard about, I almost feel like... If I dumped poison into someone's drinking well, and they die, I'll get charged with murder or at least manslaughter. If I'm a CEO and I knowingly order people in my company to dump poisons into the ground water, thereby poisoning a bunch of wells and 30 people die, then my company settles for several million dollars and I walk away scot-free.
Now, that might be a problem with enforcement rather than the law on the books. Or it might actually be a problem with perception, with how these kinds of disasters are reported, and that I'm not getting a clear picture. However, somehow, something's wrong here, and it seems like it's important to fix it.
I'd be willing to bet that nobody in the company did anything specifically illegal in handling personal information, but that top management demanded results with low costs, basically excluding security, and the workers did what they could with the resources allocated.
Well whether someone did something "specifically illegal" is very dependent on whether there's a law against it. If I leave a bomb in a school playground, whether that action is "specifically illegal" is a question as to whether there's a law against that, but that shouldn't stop us from asking whether it should be illegal. So part of what we're talking about here is not just whether the people at Ashley Madison have done something currently specifically illegal, but whether they did anything so reckless that it ought to be illegal.
I don't particularly know the answer to that. I don't know all the details about how this leak happened, what the laws are, or what the laws should be. However, I do have a feeling that when something like this happens, there should be a government investigation that determines whether there was some wrongdoing that lead to the leak. And further, if there was wrongdoing by an individual, I don't think they should have some kind of individual punishment.