People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents.
Want to bet?
Yes, I will bet you a large sum of money that no one will be arrested and prosecuted for this accident. How do you want to handle the wager? Some sort of escrow? How long do we have to go before you'll admit that those ne'er do well Mythbusters got away with it scott free? Because I don't want five years from now you still saying, "It's still possible that they could be arrested!"
Okay, I followed your link (which wasn't really a link, by the way...), and this confused me:
A typical flash from a hand-held laser at 1000 feet lasts about 1/50 of a second. In the FAA simulator studies, the flash used was one second long. The animation above "splits the difference" by using 1/2 second flashes. We feel this is a realistic portrayal of how long a typical exposure might last.
There is a MASSIVE difference between 1/50 of a second and 1 second! And they're going to "split the difference"!!?
It seems to me like saying, "We're going to simulate eating rice to determine if it could be dangerous. An average serving is around 200 grains, so our simulator uses 3000 grains. Let's split the difference and test 1600 grains. Yup, looks like rice is pretty dangerous!" Well, YEAH, if you're eating eight servings in each sitting!
Not that I'm saying lasers don't pose some danger, mind you. Maybe they do, but this just doesn't seem like a very good-faith demonstration of that. I don't understand why they don't just record some of these actual flashes and show them to the public so that we'll actually see what the problem is. The fact that they don't kind of leads me to think that under just the right, extremely rare and fluky, circumstances it could cause an issue; but really, the danger is probably exaggerated to scare people into not doing it. Such is the problem with these warnings, it's hard to tell where it is in the spectrum (no pun intended) of warnings against stuff like texting and driving (very real and very dangerous) and stuff like using cell phones at gas stations (totally bogus).
Really? First Amendment right out the window, huh? Forget slander and libel, you can't even publish the TRUTH if someone perceives it as damaging?
The First Amendment is tempered by the right to privacy. If your bank publishes your account numbers, home address and phone number, Social Security number, and mother's maiden name, and as a result you suffer identity theft and financial damages, does it make a difference that all of the information that your bank published was TRUE?
No.
Certain information is public. Your birthday is not, unless you volunteer it or it gets scooped somehow, most likely due to a breach of privacy. If the actress doesn't want personal information that she submitted to IMDb in the course of a business relationship to be published, she should have that right.
Apparently it is. If I want to know your birthday and you don't want to tell me, it's pretty durn hard for me to find out. I don't know of any generally publicly accessible way for me to find out. If I go rooting through your trash to try to find a form or something with your birthday on it, that's breach of privacy. If you give it to me in the course of a business transaction and then I go telling other people without your consent, I'd consider that a breach of privacy also.
If it's on Wikipedia or in some other public place and they report it, that's different, but that's not what the actress is claiming.
The article mentioned that she is an up-and-coming actress. Sounds to me like a waitress who is an actress wannabe looking to 1) get attention, and possibly 2) sustain herself financially while she devotes herself to her "art" (i.e. she hates being a waitress and is looking for a relatively easy payday). It's probably not someone we've ever heard of, almost certainly not someone who would meet the notability threshold of Wikipedia.
That having been said, though, it does seem to be a pretty gross violation of privacy to me for IMDb to publish someone's birth date based only on information they submitted, a date that they didn't get from some other public source. It may not be a big deal to you or me, but that doesn't matter. It's private data, and it should have been held in confidence.
I challenged a ticket in court back in 1997. Long story short, the police office on an overpass clocked the guy next to me going 70 in 55. I was innocent. I had what I considered plenty of evidence--weather reports showing that visibility that day was less than 1/4 mile (normal visibility is around 20 miles), and I even caught the cop in an outright lie. He said that he identified my car by the license plate number, even though I had photographs that clearly showed that from his vantage point, this was impossible.
The end result was unsurprising. The judge wouldn't allow any of my evidence, and after finding me guilt, as I was walking in front of the bench, the judge leaned over, covered the microphone so that the court reporter wouldn't hear, and said, "You know, you never had a chance."
Unfortunately, I was a dirt poor college student with barely enough money to buy gas, let alone hire a lawyer to help me appeal the case, or else I would have. Of course, the judge knew this. This is also the same judge who, when I had asked for a jury trial before, told me, "You can't have a jury trial, this is a traffic violation. It has to be resolved in traffic court," which I still think is bogus, but then, IANAL.
So yeah, that "right to challenge it in court?" Not so much useful. It is also why I have pretty much zero respect for our judicial system or its ability to actually serve justice. It's not just a matter of being "more efficient" to waive your rights. You HAVE no rights, and it's just a question of how much your existence tax is going to be.
As a short P.S., before that trial, I was always careful about obeying the speed limit, or at worst, driving within 5 MPH or so of it. Nowadays, I don't care. I drive as fast as I want to and that I feel is safe given whatever conditions I'm driving in. I figure that since the truth doesn't matter and I don't have a chance anyway, I might as well at least get places faster.
I've heard a lot that the number one concern over electric (and even hybrid) cars is the life of the battery system. It's extraordinarily expensive to replace, so I'm just not sure that repeatedly charging and draining it during the day a little bit at a time would be worth the possible wear and tear on the battery to justify such a thing. I know there has been a lot of progress towards reducing battery "memory," but still, I couldn't help but think that such a thing would cost me a lot of money a lot sooner than it normally would. Maybe it's just perception and not truth, but if so, I'd think it's a common perception they'd have to work very hard to overcome.
Wow, neat! At what payment level do I get to have my personal information stolen? I'm so excited, I can't wait to have my credit card number sold to the Russian mafia and my username and password hash posted on 4chan!
Of course, we're comparing a loaded Verizon network full of Droid Bionics and HTC Thunderbolts to a brand-new AT&T system just out of the wrapping paper.
Fact is, AT&T has screwed up, without exception, every single aspect of my life they've managed to touch. I had their cable service for a little while when my former provider sold out to AT&T. Fortunately, I moved shortly after that. Their residential phone service is woefully expensive. Their cellular service cuts out consistently, and I can barely get a signal (which is an improvement that only happened in the last two years--before that, I was SOL trying to use my company-issued AT&T phone) where I work in downtown Atlanta. I had 1.5 Mbps DSL at my house, as they didn't have any speed faster than that, until I figured out one day that Comcast had 16 Mbps service for a lower price.
Right now, AT&T has exactly zero--zero--LTE smartphones on its network, so yeah, I don't doubt it's fast. I simply do not trust the network to hold up to a real-life data load, though, so no thanks.
They should make sure to check the crew's DNA very carefully and make sure they're still human. A lot of really bad things in the movies have started exactly like this.
Actually, old cars and furniture most certainly CAN be copied for free. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from building a replica Model T or buying some wood, cloth, and stuffing to make an ottoman just like the one my grandfather used to use.
Obviously, I can't go steal someone's Model T or ottoman, but it's not for copyright reasons, it's because that would deny them free access to their property. That argument doesn't apply to 50-year-old recordings.
Okay, using your logic, why bother having a public domain at all? Why not just extend copyright indefinitely? Why should you get to listen to Mozart or Beethoven or look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel without paying their descendants? Why should you get to publish pictures of the Lascaux cave paintings without paying money to some company that claims "ownership"?
The answer, of course, is because eventually, society's interest in having artistic works freely copyable and distributable outweigh the artist's or his/her/their family's/company's/whatever's interest in making yet more money off of it. The artist has a social obligation to let go of their creations, just as those artists before him let go of theirs and inspired him with their works.
The thing is, most of us get paid for the work we do, but no more. If we want to get paid more, guess what? We have to work more.
But not the artists! No, once they create something, apparently, they are entitled to get paid for it the rest of their lives, and then once they die, their children get paid for it, and their children's children. Or more likely, the company that distributed it gets paid indefinitely for it.
What's left out of these conversations is this: They got paid for what they were doing when they were doing it. Why didn't they do what the rest of us normal folks have to do, save up money in a retirement plan? After all, once I retire, I certainly don't expect my company to keep paying me for the work I'm doing today, let alone the company I worked for 20 years ago to keep paying me for those Windows 3.1 PCs I set up and repaired at the time. No, instead, I contribute regularly to my 401k plan so that once I do get older, I don't have to depend on still getting paid for work I did 50 years before.
Meanwhile, by extending the copyright, they are denying our society our cultural heritage. I can't share with kids of today what music was like back in my youth because it's irrevocably locked up by copyrights until well after I'll be dead. Everyone keeps forgetting that the purpose of copyrights is not to guarantee artists an income for a lifetime. It is, at least according to the U.S. Constitution, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." How does this possibly promote the progress of science and useful arts? Do people honestly think that a 25-year-old is not going to create works of art because they're worried about it falling into the public domain when they're 75 years old instead of 95? That's ridiculous.
He's said he's sorry. He's assured you that he personally didn't directly cause you financial harm. What else do you want him to do?
As other have noted, this "most amoral and harmful acts" thing is lunacy. Were you frightened? Yeah, probably so. But causing you angst isn't the most amoral and harmful act in modern computing history. Draining your bank account and sending you and your family compelling death threats--now that would probably rank on up there. If he really could whistle into a phone and launch a nuclear missile and actually did it, yeah, that would rank on up there.
As it is, though, you come off as needlessly engaging in hyperbole because, as someone else pointed out, you have a personal ax to grind with the guy. I'm not saying that you weren't hurt by this, but certainly not to the level that you're trying to escalate it.
By the way, one thing I see notably absent from your question and your posts is anger at the company and/or companies that stored your information in a manner in which it was vulnerable to Kevin's attacks. While Kevin bears the lion's share of responsibility for the attacks, the companies certainly aren't blameless. This information--names, credit card info, etc.--is information that is foreseeably valuable to hackers, and they should have taken better precautions to secure it. Have you expressed your outrage to Netcom as well, or are you under the impression that they were merely innocent victims like you, helpless against the mean and evil hackers?
Excepting in recent years its been changed via active judiciaries, bypassing the amendment process. There's a reason it's HARD to pass an amendment. Meanwhile we've allowed men in black robes to effectively alter our founding documents based on how they feel.
This is the way the system was designed. Those "men in black robes" have the power and the mandate to interpret the law, including the Constitution.
I won't sit here and act like they don't ever screw up. Indeed, a lot of times they do. Sometimes the system needs correction. Plessy v. Ferguson, anyone? But when such is the case, the solution isn't to sit around whining about "active judiciaries," that's just stupid. If judiciaries weren't active, they wouldn't be upholding their Constitutional duty. The solution is to use the checks and balances system to rectify the situation, to put people in office with similar ideals to yours so that you will get judges who are aligned with what you think our society needs. Brown v. Board of Education, anyone?
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see people whining about "activist judges." That's just a cop-out codeword for, "they didn't rule how I wanted them to."
From TFA: "It seems unlikely that most people — or even technology enthusiasts — will want to buy a product that involves sitting alone and wearing a little helmet."
Apparently they don't know very many/. readers.
Hopefully, most technology enthusiasts will remember that this is the company that sent out rootkits on audio CDs, that took marketed functionality away from PS3 users after taking their money, that let millions of people's personal information loose due to lax security practices on their gaming network, that sued Joel Tenenbaum for $4.5 million for sharing 31 songs on the Internet, and so on ad nauseum. Personally, I also remember them for a home theater system I bought years ago that broke, that took literally months for them to fix under warranty, then that broke again just after the warranty period expired and they wouldn't repair it again even though they had it for months during the previous year.
So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if the thing is the most awesome 3D viewer ever, Sony isn't getting one damn red cent from me ever again. I regularly let my friends and family know that anything with Sony written on it--hardware, software, media, or services--is toxic and to be avoided at all costs.
If I had to guess, it's probably because they already have orders in with their suppliers that they can't cancel and contractual obligations to fulfill. The costs of making this final run are probably sunk costs, and they figured they might as well go ahead and make those last $99 sales before everything is shut down and done.
I have been haunting this site for years now. I check it at least several times a day, I've commented frequently, and even gotten some submissions green-lit. (Woot!)
This is by far one of the most informative and fun sites on the Internet, and it's deserved all of the reputation and accolades it's gotten. Just to tell you how important this site is to me, I have found out a hell of a lot of big news stories from here first. Everything from famous people dying to industry shake-ups to mainstream stuff like the earthquake a few days ago. I can't tell you how often I've shared these interesting tidbits to the delight (and yes, sometimes dismay as they express, "Why would anyone want to know or even care about that?") of my coworkers, my friends, and my family.
Wherever you ultimately end up, Rob, I sincerely hope you continue contributing to the public discourse. I know a lot of people kid around about how geeky this site is, but it's also extremely important. I can't imagine what the state of online censorship, RIAA/MPAA lawsuits, DRM, and general corporate asshatery would be like without people like you and Slashdot's submitters bringing back-page buried articles and information that most people would just gloss over front and center.
No, they don't need an in-depth analysis for that, duh.
What they do need an in-depth analysis for is mainly answering two questions:
1) Is there a way to make enough money off of other stuff to use the hardware as a loss-leader, and if so, how much of a loss-leader can they afford? In Amazon's case, perhaps they can afford to sell the hardware at a substantial discount--yes, perhaps even $99--if, for example, they have an iTunes-like store in which they can make gobs of money to cover the cost of manufacturing the tablets plus make a profit.
2) Are there other advantages in leveraging a very large user base? In Amazon's case, for example, if they have bajillions of Amazon Kindroids out there, maybe content companies (20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Sony, etc.) would cut really good deals to Amazon on their streaming service license fees.
That second point cannot be overstated enough. Apple frequently uses their market position to dictate to developers and content creators the terms under which their creations will be sold in the App Store, whereas when developers and content creators deal with Amazon, they have a lot more leverage because their market position is quite a bit weaker. If Amazon sold a bunch of Kindroids for a loss of $1 million but were able to negotiate $2 million in savings and/or profits from people who want access to the massive Kindroid user base that creates, that's a win.
Of course, it's also a dangerous game to play. If they sell a crapton of Kindroids but those users don't buy crap in addition to it, they might not be able to leverage their position and they're just out $1 million... Thus the in-depth analysis.
So? They will have your phone number. Are you afraid of marketing calls? Set up a Google Voice account. Use that number and froward it to your cell. If they flood it with advertisements, un-forward it.
...Or I could just, you know, not. It's not like this is something extremely useful and/or important that I need. It's something totally useless and purely for mild amusement, certainly not worth the trouble of making special arrangements for.
So yeah, I stand by my original answer. No thank you.
...And there it is. Pulled out of the site's Privacy Policy (emphasis mine):
"Personally Identifiable Information" means any information that may be used to identify an individual, such as, without limitation, a first and last name, home or other physical address, an email address, phone number or other contact information, whether at work or at home.
...
We may use your Personally Identifiable Information to complete transactions, respond to your requests, answer your questions, and notify you of promotions, updates, or special offers that we think may interest you.
Is it a clever idea? Yes, it is, and it really sounds like a fun thing to participate in. But if it means that I might start getting advertising texts--or worse, phone calls--then hell no. Count me out. I sympathize with them needing money to keep the service up and running, but that's just way over the line for what I'm willing to give people just for a few minutes here and there of amusement.
Slashdot Mirror
People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents.
Want to bet?
Yes, I will bet you a large sum of money that no one will be arrested and prosecuted for this accident. How do you want to handle the wager? Some sort of escrow? How long do we have to go before you'll admit that those ne'er do well Mythbusters got away with it scott free? Because I don't want five years from now you still saying, "It's still possible that they could be arrested!"
I thought it was hysterical.
Okay, I followed your link (which wasn't really a link, by the way...), and this confused me:
A typical flash from a hand-held laser at 1000 feet lasts about 1/50 of a second. In the FAA simulator studies, the flash used was one second long. The animation above "splits the difference" by using 1/2 second flashes. We feel this is a realistic portrayal of how long a typical exposure might last.
There is a MASSIVE difference between 1/50 of a second and 1 second! And they're going to "split the difference"!!?
It seems to me like saying, "We're going to simulate eating rice to determine if it could be dangerous. An average serving is around 200 grains, so our simulator uses 3000 grains. Let's split the difference and test 1600 grains. Yup, looks like rice is pretty dangerous!" Well, YEAH, if you're eating eight servings in each sitting!
Not that I'm saying lasers don't pose some danger, mind you. Maybe they do, but this just doesn't seem like a very good-faith demonstration of that. I don't understand why they don't just record some of these actual flashes and show them to the public so that we'll actually see what the problem is. The fact that they don't kind of leads me to think that under just the right, extremely rare and fluky, circumstances it could cause an issue; but really, the danger is probably exaggerated to scare people into not doing it. Such is the problem with these warnings, it's hard to tell where it is in the spectrum (no pun intended) of warnings against stuff like texting and driving (very real and very dangerous) and stuff like using cell phones at gas stations (totally bogus).
Really? First Amendment right out the window, huh? Forget slander and libel, you can't even publish the TRUTH if someone perceives it as damaging?
The First Amendment is tempered by the right to privacy. If your bank publishes your account numbers, home address and phone number, Social Security number, and mother's maiden name, and as a result you suffer identity theft and financial damages, does it make a difference that all of the information that your bank published was TRUE?
No.
Certain information is public. Your birthday is not, unless you volunteer it or it gets scooped somehow, most likely due to a breach of privacy. If the actress doesn't want personal information that she submitted to IMDb in the course of a business relationship to be published, she should have that right.
Apparently it is. If I want to know your birthday and you don't want to tell me, it's pretty durn hard for me to find out. I don't know of any generally publicly accessible way for me to find out. If I go rooting through your trash to try to find a form or something with your birthday on it, that's breach of privacy. If you give it to me in the course of a business transaction and then I go telling other people without your consent, I'd consider that a breach of privacy also.
If it's on Wikipedia or in some other public place and they report it, that's different, but that's not what the actress is claiming.
The article mentioned that she is an up-and-coming actress. Sounds to me like a waitress who is an actress wannabe looking to 1) get attention, and possibly 2) sustain herself financially while she devotes herself to her "art" (i.e. she hates being a waitress and is looking for a relatively easy payday). It's probably not someone we've ever heard of, almost certainly not someone who would meet the notability threshold of Wikipedia.
That having been said, though, it does seem to be a pretty gross violation of privacy to me for IMDb to publish someone's birth date based only on information they submitted, a date that they didn't get from some other public source. It may not be a big deal to you or me, but that doesn't matter. It's private data, and it should have been held in confidence.
They're lawyers. It's money. They could tell by smell if they had to.
Please, don't ask. I have a high degree of confidence that not only can it, it probably will.
I challenged a ticket in court back in 1997. Long story short, the police office on an overpass clocked the guy next to me going 70 in 55. I was innocent. I had what I considered plenty of evidence--weather reports showing that visibility that day was less than 1/4 mile (normal visibility is around 20 miles), and I even caught the cop in an outright lie. He said that he identified my car by the license plate number, even though I had photographs that clearly showed that from his vantage point, this was impossible.
The end result was unsurprising. The judge wouldn't allow any of my evidence, and after finding me guilt, as I was walking in front of the bench, the judge leaned over, covered the microphone so that the court reporter wouldn't hear, and said, "You know, you never had a chance."
Unfortunately, I was a dirt poor college student with barely enough money to buy gas, let alone hire a lawyer to help me appeal the case, or else I would have. Of course, the judge knew this. This is also the same judge who, when I had asked for a jury trial before, told me, "You can't have a jury trial, this is a traffic violation. It has to be resolved in traffic court," which I still think is bogus, but then, IANAL.
So yeah, that "right to challenge it in court?" Not so much useful. It is also why I have pretty much zero respect for our judicial system or its ability to actually serve justice. It's not just a matter of being "more efficient" to waive your rights. You HAVE no rights, and it's just a question of how much your existence tax is going to be.
As a short P.S., before that trial, I was always careful about obeying the speed limit, or at worst, driving within 5 MPH or so of it. Nowadays, I don't care. I drive as fast as I want to and that I feel is safe given whatever conditions I'm driving in. I figure that since the truth doesn't matter and I don't have a chance anyway, I might as well at least get places faster.
I've heard a lot that the number one concern over electric (and even hybrid) cars is the life of the battery system. It's extraordinarily expensive to replace, so I'm just not sure that repeatedly charging and draining it during the day a little bit at a time would be worth the possible wear and tear on the battery to justify such a thing. I know there has been a lot of progress towards reducing battery "memory," but still, I couldn't help but think that such a thing would cost me a lot of money a lot sooner than it normally would. Maybe it's just perception and not truth, but if so, I'd think it's a common perception they'd have to work very hard to overcome.
Wow, neat! At what payment level do I get to have my personal information stolen? I'm so excited, I can't wait to have my credit card number sold to the Russian mafia and my username and password hash posted on 4chan!
From the article:
Of course, we're comparing a loaded Verizon network full of Droid Bionics and HTC Thunderbolts to a brand-new AT&T system just out of the wrapping paper.
Fact is, AT&T has screwed up, without exception, every single aspect of my life they've managed to touch. I had their cable service for a little while when my former provider sold out to AT&T. Fortunately, I moved shortly after that. Their residential phone service is woefully expensive. Their cellular service cuts out consistently, and I can barely get a signal (which is an improvement that only happened in the last two years--before that, I was SOL trying to use my company-issued AT&T phone) where I work in downtown Atlanta. I had 1.5 Mbps DSL at my house, as they didn't have any speed faster than that, until I figured out one day that Comcast had 16 Mbps service for a lower price.
Right now, AT&T has exactly zero--zero--LTE smartphones on its network, so yeah, I don't doubt it's fast. I simply do not trust the network to hold up to a real-life data load, though, so no thanks.
They should make sure to check the crew's DNA very carefully and make sure they're still human. A lot of really bad things in the movies have started exactly like this.
Actually, old cars and furniture most certainly CAN be copied for free. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from building a replica Model T or buying some wood, cloth, and stuffing to make an ottoman just like the one my grandfather used to use.
Obviously, I can't go steal someone's Model T or ottoman, but it's not for copyright reasons, it's because that would deny them free access to their property. That argument doesn't apply to 50-year-old recordings.
Okay, using your logic, why bother having a public domain at all? Why not just extend copyright indefinitely? Why should you get to listen to Mozart or Beethoven or look at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel without paying their descendants? Why should you get to publish pictures of the Lascaux cave paintings without paying money to some company that claims "ownership"?
The answer, of course, is because eventually, society's interest in having artistic works freely copyable and distributable outweigh the artist's or his/her/their family's/company's/whatever's interest in making yet more money off of it. The artist has a social obligation to let go of their creations, just as those artists before him let go of theirs and inspired him with their works.
Just get a job like the rest of us
I cannot emphasize how insightful this is.
The thing is, most of us get paid for the work we do, but no more. If we want to get paid more, guess what? We have to work more.
But not the artists! No, once they create something, apparently, they are entitled to get paid for it the rest of their lives, and then once they die, their children get paid for it, and their children's children. Or more likely, the company that distributed it gets paid indefinitely for it.
What's left out of these conversations is this: They got paid for what they were doing when they were doing it. Why didn't they do what the rest of us normal folks have to do, save up money in a retirement plan? After all, once I retire, I certainly don't expect my company to keep paying me for the work I'm doing today, let alone the company I worked for 20 years ago to keep paying me for those Windows 3.1 PCs I set up and repaired at the time. No, instead, I contribute regularly to my 401k plan so that once I do get older, I don't have to depend on still getting paid for work I did 50 years before.
Meanwhile, by extending the copyright, they are denying our society our cultural heritage. I can't share with kids of today what music was like back in my youth because it's irrevocably locked up by copyrights until well after I'll be dead. Everyone keeps forgetting that the purpose of copyrights is not to guarantee artists an income for a lifetime. It is, at least according to the U.S. Constitution, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." How does this possibly promote the progress of science and useful arts? Do people honestly think that a 25-year-old is not going to create works of art because they're worried about it falling into the public domain when they're 75 years old instead of 95? That's ridiculous.
He's said he's sorry. He's assured you that he personally didn't directly cause you financial harm. What else do you want him to do?
As other have noted, this "most amoral and harmful acts" thing is lunacy. Were you frightened? Yeah, probably so. But causing you angst isn't the most amoral and harmful act in modern computing history. Draining your bank account and sending you and your family compelling death threats--now that would probably rank on up there. If he really could whistle into a phone and launch a nuclear missile and actually did it, yeah, that would rank on up there.
As it is, though, you come off as needlessly engaging in hyperbole because, as someone else pointed out, you have a personal ax to grind with the guy. I'm not saying that you weren't hurt by this, but certainly not to the level that you're trying to escalate it.
By the way, one thing I see notably absent from your question and your posts is anger at the company and/or companies that stored your information in a manner in which it was vulnerable to Kevin's attacks. While Kevin bears the lion's share of responsibility for the attacks, the companies certainly aren't blameless. This information--names, credit card info, etc.--is information that is foreseeably valuable to hackers, and they should have taken better precautions to secure it. Have you expressed your outrage to Netcom as well, or are you under the impression that they were merely innocent victims like you, helpless against the mean and evil hackers?
Excepting in recent years its been changed via active judiciaries, bypassing the amendment process. There's a reason it's HARD to pass an amendment. Meanwhile we've allowed men in black robes to effectively alter our founding documents based on how they feel.
This is the way the system was designed. Those "men in black robes" have the power and the mandate to interpret the law, including the Constitution.
I won't sit here and act like they don't ever screw up. Indeed, a lot of times they do. Sometimes the system needs correction. Plessy v. Ferguson, anyone? But when such is the case, the solution isn't to sit around whining about "active judiciaries," that's just stupid. If judiciaries weren't active, they wouldn't be upholding their Constitutional duty. The solution is to use the checks and balances system to rectify the situation, to put people in office with similar ideals to yours so that you will get judges who are aligned with what you think our society needs. Brown v. Board of Education, anyone?
I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see people whining about "activist judges." That's just a cop-out codeword for, "they didn't rule how I wanted them to."
From TFA: "It seems unlikely that most people — or even technology enthusiasts — will want to buy a product that involves sitting alone and wearing a little helmet."
Apparently they don't know very many /. readers.
Hopefully, most technology enthusiasts will remember that this is the company that sent out rootkits on audio CDs, that took marketed functionality away from PS3 users after taking their money, that let millions of people's personal information loose due to lax security practices on their gaming network, that sued Joel Tenenbaum for $4.5 million for sharing 31 songs on the Internet, and so on ad nauseum. Personally, I also remember them for a home theater system I bought years ago that broke, that took literally months for them to fix under warranty, then that broke again just after the warranty period expired and they wouldn't repair it again even though they had it for months during the previous year.
So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if the thing is the most awesome 3D viewer ever, Sony isn't getting one damn red cent from me ever again. I regularly let my friends and family know that anything with Sony written on it--hardware, software, media, or services--is toxic and to be avoided at all costs.
If I had to guess, it's probably because they already have orders in with their suppliers that they can't cancel and contractual obligations to fulfill. The costs of making this final run are probably sunk costs, and they figured they might as well go ahead and make those last $99 sales before everything is shut down and done.
With version 3.0 of Awesomesauce installed?
I have been haunting this site for years now. I check it at least several times a day, I've commented frequently, and even gotten some submissions green-lit. (Woot!)
This is by far one of the most informative and fun sites on the Internet, and it's deserved all of the reputation and accolades it's gotten. Just to tell you how important this site is to me, I have found out a hell of a lot of big news stories from here first. Everything from famous people dying to industry shake-ups to mainstream stuff like the earthquake a few days ago. I can't tell you how often I've shared these interesting tidbits to the delight (and yes, sometimes dismay as they express, "Why would anyone want to know or even care about that?") of my coworkers, my friends, and my family.
Wherever you ultimately end up, Rob, I sincerely hope you continue contributing to the public discourse. I know a lot of people kid around about how geeky this site is, but it's also extremely important. I can't imagine what the state of online censorship, RIAA/MPAA lawsuits, DRM, and general corporate asshatery would be like without people like you and Slashdot's submitters bringing back-page buried articles and information that most people would just gloss over front and center.
Thanks for all of your hard work, and good luck.
No, they don't need an in-depth analysis for that, duh.
What they do need an in-depth analysis for is mainly answering two questions:
1) Is there a way to make enough money off of other stuff to use the hardware as a loss-leader, and if so, how much of a loss-leader can they afford? In Amazon's case, perhaps they can afford to sell the hardware at a substantial discount--yes, perhaps even $99--if, for example, they have an iTunes-like store in which they can make gobs of money to cover the cost of manufacturing the tablets plus make a profit.
2) Are there other advantages in leveraging a very large user base? In Amazon's case, for example, if they have bajillions of Amazon Kindroids out there, maybe content companies (20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Sony, etc.) would cut really good deals to Amazon on their streaming service license fees.
That second point cannot be overstated enough. Apple frequently uses their market position to dictate to developers and content creators the terms under which their creations will be sold in the App Store, whereas when developers and content creators deal with Amazon, they have a lot more leverage because their market position is quite a bit weaker. If Amazon sold a bunch of Kindroids for a loss of $1 million but were able to negotiate $2 million in savings and/or profits from people who want access to the massive Kindroid user base that creates, that's a win.
Of course, it's also a dangerous game to play. If they sell a crapton of Kindroids but those users don't buy crap in addition to it, they might not be able to leverage their position and they're just out $1 million... Thus the in-depth analysis.
So? They will have your phone number. Are you afraid of marketing calls? Set up a Google Voice account. Use that number and froward it to your cell. If they flood it with advertisements, un-forward it.
...Or I could just, you know, not. It's not like this is something extremely useful and/or important that I need. It's something totally useless and purely for mild amusement, certainly not worth the trouble of making special arrangements for.
So yeah, I stand by my original answer. No thank you.
...And there it is. Pulled out of the site's Privacy Policy (emphasis mine):
"Personally Identifiable Information" means any information that may be used to identify an individual, such as, without limitation, a first and last name, home or other physical address, an email address, phone number or other contact information, whether at work or at home.
...
We may use your Personally Identifiable Information to complete transactions, respond to your requests, answer your questions, and notify you of promotions, updates, or special offers that we think may interest you.
Is it a clever idea? Yes, it is, and it really sounds like a fun thing to participate in. But if it means that I might start getting advertising texts--or worse, phone calls--then hell no. Count me out. I sympathize with them needing money to keep the service up and running, but that's just way over the line for what I'm willing to give people just for a few minutes here and there of amusement.