They will check working conditions and...then do what when they find violations? Is there any reason to think that Apple will stop doing business with factories that mistreat workers? Is this going to be another sham like Apple's treatment of the conflict minerals situation (where Steve Jobs basically threw his hands up and said that Apple could do nothing about it)?
1. Apple actually _has_ stopped doing business with companies in the past due to mistreating workers and other reasons. Apple has also in the last year made companies repay $3.3 million in fees that workers paid to agencies to find jobs.
2. The situation with "conflict minerals" is actually a lot more difficult than you think. There are plenty of honest and hard-working communities losing out at the moment because nobody knows what paperwork would have to be filled out to be allowed to buy their products.
This is a rather pathetic attempt at misdirection. Of course the strategy is to claim this is about malware. But guess what, when you look under the hood you find that it is not. There is absolutely no reason to block the installation of another OS, except direct anti-competitiveness. If it was just to prevent the user from easily open their system, there would be other options.
In a perfect world, you would be able to run Windows without problems, and malware infected Windows wouldn't run. You would also be able to run for example Redhat Linux without problems, if Redhat bothered to handle the details with the device manufacturer. You would also be able to run any OS if you explicitly override your protection. Which in case of anything that looks like Windows would be stupid (anything that looks like Windows but isn't would be malware with 99% certainty), and in case of a Linux distribution you would take your chances, same as you do now.
So yes, the intent can only be anti-competitive. If or when Microsoft has so much market power that I can buy ARM computers running Windows but no ARM computers running anything else, then it would be illegal.
What about european countries seeking extradition of US citizens for carrying guns in public?
A similar thing happened a few years ago, when some neo nazi sent nazi propaganda material from the USA to Germany. Since this was a crime according to German law, German authorities asked for him to be extradited, which was completely correct. Since it was not a crime according to US law, US authorities refused to extradite him, which was also completely correct. Thankfully the fucker went to a meeting of fellow neonazis in Denmark, was extradited to Germany in accordance with EU law, and spent some time in jail.
Of course no European country would ask for an extradition for carrying guns in public in the USA. Only if you did it in that European country. And in that case you would most likely be arrested before leaving the country. With the Internet, it is a lot easier to commit a crime in country B while being yourself in country A. With other crimes, extradition only comes into play when you commit a crime, and then flee to another country. And of course if you are a US citizen, go to another country, do something that is illegal there and get caught, your US citizenship isn't going to help you.
WTF happened to the concept of jurisdiction? Why should the US be able to enforce its laws in the UK? This sets a VERY bad precedent; what if country A has some really stupid law that country B doesn't, and someone in country B breaks it? Should they be extradited to country A?
In German law, you would be extradited to the USA if: 1. You did something that would be a crime according to German law. 2. The crime was committed in the USA, and according to German law a crime is committed at the place where it has an effect (like sending a letter bomb from Germany that explodes in New York would be a crime committed in the USA). 3. There must be enough evidence that according to a German prosecutor, it would go to court if it happened in Germany. Not enough evidence to convict, but enough to prosecute. 4. There must be a guarantee of a fair trial, and no cruel or unusual punishment. That means in case of murder, the court would have to guarantee that there is no death penalty. For small offences, the trauma of being extradited and having to stand trial in a foreign country could already be considered too much punishment.
There must also be a guarantee that you cannot be prosecuted for anything other than the things that you were extradited for. Which means police often delays asking for an extradition of you are suspected of having committed multiple crimes unless they have enough evidence for each crime.
sure someone working 12hrs a day is producing two jobs' worth? i'd rather bet on 2/3 worth of a rested, relaxed worker. maybe even just 1/2 worth of a positively motivated worker.
What has been found in actual studies was that a person working 60 hours per week for six weeks and a person working 40 hours per week for six weeks produce the same amount of work. No gain whatsoever from slaving extra 20 hours a week.
However, after six weeks you have one person being totally tired and one person fit. From then on, the one doing 40 hour weeks will be more productive.
It will be a very difficult task to port x86 software to ARM...
Been there, done that, not a problem at all (> hundred thousand lines of code). The difference between x86 and ARM is much less than the difference between x86 and PowerPC.
ARM processors aren't guaranteed to support unaligned accesses, so sufficiently-safe translations of x86 memory-reference instructions might be complicated code sequences.
About three instructions to perform a 32 bit load from an arbitrary address vs. one instruction if you know it is aligned. Store will be a bit more. On an iPhone for example, you can tell the compiler that a 32 bit integer is (potentially) unaligned and it will use three instructions, if you don't tell it but it _is_ in fact unaligned, then you get an exception, and the OS fixes it, taking several hundred cycles.
If someone is a troll, but really funny, should that be modded down as "troll" or modded up as "humour"? (That said, if I had a real "Human Resource Manager" like that, I can promise that we would have a meeting behind the bike shed, and I would totally give up my usual non-violent attitude).
Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome are so easy to prevent by not eating the wrong kinds of foods that it's more accurate to refer to those conditions as lifestyle choices rather than diseases.
Now if you told us what in your opinion the "wrong" kinds of food are. As an example, take this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Bread which sounds very healthy, but is just about the worst stuff you can put into your body.
As a pre-diabetic myself I'm wondering if this will need to be FDA approved?
What makes you think this would help one bit? They created an artificial problem in mice, which as a result leads to the same problems as Type 2 diabetes, then fix the artificial problem. If you are not a mouse, then this is unlikely to work for you. And if your condition isn't caused by someone changing your gut bacteria to something very unhealthy, they have nothing that could help you.
I don't know a single person who owns a tablet while not owning a full computer, and I definitely don't know anyone who owns a laptop but not a smartphone. Maybe they're out there, but I've never met one.
I have two desktops and two laptops at home, two desktops (10 cores total) at work, and no smartphone. I know two persons in their fifties owning an iPad but no computer, several people of all ages owning an iPad and not using their computer anymore, and among younger people who have never owned a computer (yet) many _will_ never own a computer.
You are making a completely baseless accusation of copyright infringement. That accusation is malicious, since you know it isn't true, and causes damage to the posters reputation. As a result, you are guilty of slander of title. Expect a lawsuit for millions in damages.
You mean IBM, not Apple. Apple followed about 15 years after.
So you are saying that sometime around 1995 IBM built tablets without buttons and sold gazillions of them, and all the kids wanted one for Christmas, and Apple just copied them?
My question is, at what point does a particular design go from being something proprietary to something obvious for it's function? For instance, when does "rounded rectangles" go from being a style feature to a "of course the corners are rounded, what else are they going to do with them, make them pointed?" When does a particular size go from a "design style" to "duh, of course it's going to be about the same size, it is intended for the same function"?
That is relatively easy. Anything that is designed in some way because that is necessary for it to work is fine. Round wheels on a car or bicycle would be an example. Very thin tyres on a racing bicycle would be an example as well. Rectangular screen is another example. A good criterion is looking at other products; if they achieve the same thing with a different design, then the design is quite likely not forced by the function. In your example, of course you can have square corners instead of rounded.
Beyond that, it is not one design choice, to get into legal trouble you would need to make a whole series of design choices the same or very similar. If manufacturer X says "my design consists of A, B, C, D, E and F" then using any of those in your own design is fine. Just not all of them at the same time. And what are the chances that a different designer who is _not_ copying would make six arbitrary design choices in the same way?
You say that a manufacturer shouldn't be forced to put physical buttons on a touchscreen device because Apple doesn't have any, but then I would say a manufacturer shouldn't remove them because Apple removed them.
A trade secret hasn't left the control of the company just because it is on my personally owned device - as long as I have a legal duty not to pass it on any further. As an employee, I would have that duty, just as any outside company or person under NDA would have.
My thoughts exactly. If you think about this as a developer who wants to implement a backdoor, open source is much more risky for you. You'll have to be clever in order to hide it in plain sight, and there is still a good chance someone will find it. In contrast, when the software is closed, you can write the simplest,, backdoor, and not worry about being seen.
If I tried to implement something like that, my colleagues would find out and I would get fired. Now if my company decided to implement a backdoor, then open or closed source doesn't make much difference, because nobody outside the company would ever see the code. On the other hand, there would be quite a few witnesses, and there would be evidence, and overall this would be quite a dangerous idea.
It seems to me this was done, not for security, but for business reasons. Now Apple can use the DMCA to keep other companies from making a power adapters for Apple products.
Please explain how that would work. What copyrighted work of Apple would be copied by a company making a power adapter for Apple products? Since Lexmark tried some idiotic shit, everyone, including judges, knows what kind of stuff the DMCA does _not_ cover.
How constitutional is this, given that we do not (yet) have a two-tier justice system? Either everyone's personality rights are "protected" or no one's. Unless we do have First Class and Second Class citiziens, of course.
It is quite likely that as a not-so-famous citizen you have many more rights. If a movie gets filmed on the street and you happen to be in the scene, they have to find you and get your permission or that scene cannot be shown.
Next time you see a minor collision between a new car and a Chrysler from the 70's you will see that build quality has changed over the years.
Or if you climb out of your new car after the accident and the people in the Chrysler don't. The clever thing about newer cars is that in an accident they will crumble except for the passenger cell, eating up the energy so that the driver and passenger don't have to.
Whats to stop the person making the claim from popping out to a thrift shop, buying an old educational violin for peanuts (or lashing out a slightly larger sum on a cheap Chinese violin), and "destroying" that? For a $2500 refund, I'm surprised thay don't require the whole, unbroken violin to be returned to PayPal.
The same thing that keeps most people from committing fraud: Either common decency, or fear of getting caught.
Yes and no... if it is a fake, then presumably there'd be no great loss in destroying it. However, it could also be that the buyer is mistaken, and the article is authentic. In that case, it makes more sense to nullify the deal (ie: return the merchandise and refund the money) rather than "nullifying" the merchandise.
There are quite a few very valuable fakes. For example, in the 18th century quite a lot of fake 16th century china was created. So you have stuff that is worth maybe £4,000 because it is an 18th century fake, but would be worth £20,000 if it was the genuine 16th century fake.
You can download Poker Face for $1.29... How much did Apple pay for rights to distribute it? $1.29? Nope. Try hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I don't think Apple pays anything for the right to distribute it. However, they pay 70% of the $1.29 to the rightsholders every time someone buys it, that is about $0.90.
That also answers the claim that the owner doesn't lose anything if you make an illegal copy: If I download from iTunes, they get $0.90. If I make an illegal copy instead, they get nothing. Difference = $0.90
However, there is always the argument being made that if you make a song available for downloading, millions of copies could be made. One argument is that everyone making an illegal download could make that download available to others, creating something like an avalanche of downloads. But that argument is nonsense, because everyone downloading legally from iTunes could make that download available as well. But the reality is, that the copy from one person making downloads available is _not_ copied millions of times. It is quite obvious that average number of illegal downloads from one person equals total number of illegal downloads, divided by number of individuals making downloads available. And that quotient isn't very high.
Whether you think copying something should be illegal or not (it shouldn't), it's impossible for copying to be stealing. The original owner is deprived of NOTHING when a copy is made.
Interestingly, in German law "depriving the owner" is not part of the definition of theft. Theft is "illegally taking away with the intent to enrich yourself".
Rounded corners since 1984. Unlike X Windows. Long time before Ives. Thanks, Bill Atkinson.
If your actual intent was to make some snide remarks about things that you are clueless about, you should post what you mean so that your arguments can be taken apart.
Proper use of Sir: "The queen is a wrinkled old bag and you are all tools for listening to her, Sirrahs." Seriously, who cares about the proper use of Sir? Nobody in the USA, where we don't have kings, queens, knights... or heroes.
From the Americans that I know, quite a few do. .
And Martin Luther King's family would disagree, as would the residents of Queens, New York, and all Batman fans on two grounds:-)
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They will check working conditions and...then do what when they find violations? Is there any reason to think that Apple will stop doing business with factories that mistreat workers? Is this going to be another sham like Apple's treatment of the conflict minerals situation (where Steve Jobs basically threw his hands up and said that Apple could do nothing about it)?
1. Apple actually _has_ stopped doing business with companies in the past due to mistreating workers and other reasons. Apple has also in the last year made companies repay $3.3 million in fees that workers paid to agencies to find jobs.
2. The situation with "conflict minerals" is actually a lot more difficult than you think. There are plenty of honest and hard-working communities losing out at the moment because nobody knows what paperwork would have to be filled out to be allowed to buy their products.
This is a rather pathetic attempt at misdirection. Of course the strategy is to claim this is about malware. But guess what, when you look under the hood you find that it is not. There is absolutely no reason to block the installation of another OS, except direct anti-competitiveness. If it was just to prevent the user from easily open their system, there would be other options.
In a perfect world, you would be able to run Windows without problems, and malware infected Windows wouldn't run. You would also be able to run for example Redhat Linux without problems, if Redhat bothered to handle the details with the device manufacturer. You would also be able to run any OS if you explicitly override your protection. Which in case of anything that looks like Windows would be stupid (anything that looks like Windows but isn't would be malware with 99% certainty), and in case of a Linux distribution you would take your chances, same as you do now.
So yes, the intent can only be anti-competitive. If or when Microsoft has so much market power that I can buy ARM computers running Windows but no ARM computers running anything else, then it would be illegal.
What about european countries seeking extradition of US citizens for carrying guns in public?
A similar thing happened a few years ago, when some neo nazi sent nazi propaganda material from the USA to Germany. Since this was a crime according to German law, German authorities asked for him to be extradited, which was completely correct. Since it was not a crime according to US law, US authorities refused to extradite him, which was also completely correct. Thankfully the fucker went to a meeting of fellow neonazis in Denmark, was extradited to Germany in accordance with EU law, and spent some time in jail.
Of course no European country would ask for an extradition for carrying guns in public in the USA. Only if you did it in that European country. And in that case you would most likely be arrested before leaving the country. With the Internet, it is a lot easier to commit a crime in country B while being yourself in country A. With other crimes, extradition only comes into play when you commit a crime, and then flee to another country. And of course if you are a US citizen, go to another country, do something that is illegal there and get caught, your US citizenship isn't going to help you.
WTF happened to the concept of jurisdiction? Why should the US be able to enforce its laws in the UK? This sets a VERY bad precedent; what if country A has some really stupid law that country B doesn't, and someone in country B breaks it? Should they be extradited to country A?
In German law, you would be extradited to the USA if: 1. You did something that would be a crime according to German law. 2. The crime was committed in the USA, and according to German law a crime is committed at the place where it has an effect (like sending a letter bomb from Germany that explodes in New York would be a crime committed in the USA). 3. There must be enough evidence that according to a German prosecutor, it would go to court if it happened in Germany. Not enough evidence to convict, but enough to prosecute. 4. There must be a guarantee of a fair trial, and no cruel or unusual punishment. That means in case of murder, the court would have to guarantee that there is no death penalty. For small offences, the trauma of being extradited and having to stand trial in a foreign country could already be considered too much punishment.
There must also be a guarantee that you cannot be prosecuted for anything other than the things that you were extradited for. Which means police often delays asking for an extradition of you are suspected of having committed multiple crimes unless they have enough evidence for each crime.
sure someone working 12hrs a day is producing two jobs' worth? i'd rather bet on 2/3 worth of a rested, relaxed worker. maybe even just 1/2 worth of a positively motivated worker.
What has been found in actual studies was that a person working 60 hours per week for six weeks and a person working 40 hours per week for six weeks produce the same amount of work. No gain whatsoever from slaving extra 20 hours a week.
However, after six weeks you have one person being totally tired and one person fit. From then on, the one doing 40 hour weeks will be more productive.
It will be a very difficult task to port x86 software to ARM...
Been there, done that, not a problem at all (> hundred thousand lines of code). The difference between x86 and ARM is much less than the difference between x86 and PowerPC.
ARM processors aren't guaranteed to support unaligned accesses, so sufficiently-safe translations of x86 memory-reference instructions might be complicated code sequences.
About three instructions to perform a 32 bit load from an arbitrary address vs. one instruction if you know it is aligned. Store will be a bit more. On an iPhone for example, you can tell the compiler that a 32 bit integer is (potentially) unaligned and it will use three instructions, if you don't tell it but it _is_ in fact unaligned, then you get an exception, and the OS fixes it, taking several hundred cycles.
If someone is a troll, but really funny, should that be modded down as "troll" or modded up as "humour"? (That said, if I had a real "Human Resource Manager" like that, I can promise that we would have a meeting behind the bike shed, and I would totally give up my usual non-violent attitude).
Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome are so easy to prevent by not eating the wrong kinds of foods that it's more accurate to refer to those conditions as lifestyle choices rather than diseases.
Now if you told us what in your opinion the "wrong" kinds of food are. As an example, take this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonder_Bread which sounds very healthy, but is just about the worst stuff you can put into your body.
As a pre-diabetic myself I'm wondering if this will need to be FDA approved?
What makes you think this would help one bit? They created an artificial problem in mice, which as a result leads to the same problems as Type 2 diabetes, then fix the artificial problem. If you are not a mouse, then this is unlikely to work for you. And if your condition isn't caused by someone changing your gut bacteria to something very unhealthy, they have nothing that could help you.
I don't know a single person who owns a tablet while not owning a full computer, and I definitely don't know anyone who owns a laptop but not a smartphone. Maybe they're out there, but I've never met one.
I have two desktops and two laptops at home, two desktops (10 cores total) at work, and no smartphone. I know two persons in their fifties owning an iPad but no computer, several people of all ages owning an iPad and not using their computer anymore, and among younger people who have never owned a computer (yet) many _will_ never own a computer.
You are making a completely baseless accusation of copyright infringement. That accusation is malicious, since you know it isn't true, and causes damage to the posters reputation. As a result, you are guilty of slander of title. Expect a lawsuit for millions in damages.
You mean IBM, not Apple. Apple followed about 15 years after.
So you are saying that sometime around 1995 IBM built tablets without buttons and sold gazillions of them, and all the kids wanted one for Christmas, and Apple just copied them?
My question is, at what point does a particular design go from being something proprietary to something obvious for it's function? For instance, when does "rounded rectangles" go from being a style feature to a "of course the corners are rounded, what else are they going to do with them, make them pointed?" When does a particular size go from a "design style" to "duh, of course it's going to be about the same size, it is intended for the same function"?
That is relatively easy. Anything that is designed in some way because that is necessary for it to work is fine. Round wheels on a car or bicycle would be an example. Very thin tyres on a racing bicycle would be an example as well. Rectangular screen is another example. A good criterion is looking at other products; if they achieve the same thing with a different design, then the design is quite likely not forced by the function. In your example, of course you can have square corners instead of rounded.
Beyond that, it is not one design choice, to get into legal trouble you would need to make a whole series of design choices the same or very similar. If manufacturer X says "my design consists of A, B, C, D, E and F" then using any of those in your own design is fine. Just not all of them at the same time. And what are the chances that a different designer who is _not_ copying would make six arbitrary design choices in the same way?
You say that a manufacturer shouldn't be forced to put physical buttons on a touchscreen device because Apple doesn't have any, but then I would say a manufacturer shouldn't remove them because Apple removed them.
A trade secret hasn't left the control of the company just because it is on my personally owned device - as long as I have a legal duty not to pass it on any further. As an employee, I would have that duty, just as any outside company or person under NDA would have.
My thoughts exactly. If you think about this as a developer who wants to implement a backdoor, open source is much more risky for you. You'll have to be clever in order to hide it in plain sight, and there is still a good chance someone will find it. In contrast, when the software is closed, you can write the simplest ,, backdoor, and not worry about being seen.
If I tried to implement something like that, my colleagues would find out and I would get fired. Now if my company decided to implement a backdoor, then open or closed source doesn't make much difference, because nobody outside the company would ever see the code. On the other hand, there would be quite a few witnesses, and there would be evidence, and overall this would be quite a dangerous idea.
It seems to me this was done, not for security, but for business reasons. Now Apple can use the DMCA to keep other companies from making a power adapters for Apple products.
Please explain how that would work. What copyrighted work of Apple would be copied by a company making a power adapter for Apple products? Since Lexmark tried some idiotic shit, everyone, including judges, knows what kind of stuff the DMCA does _not_ cover.
How constitutional is this, given that we do not (yet) have a two-tier justice system? Either everyone's personality rights are "protected" or no one's. Unless we do have First Class and Second Class citiziens, of course.
It is quite likely that as a not-so-famous citizen you have many more rights. If a movie gets filmed on the street and you happen to be in the scene, they have to find you and get your permission or that scene cannot be shown.
Next time you see a minor collision between a new car and a Chrysler from the 70's you will see that build quality has changed over the years.
Or if you climb out of your new car after the accident and the people in the Chrysler don't. The clever thing about newer cars is that in an accident they will crumble except for the passenger cell, eating up the energy so that the driver and passenger don't have to.
Whats to stop the person making the claim from popping out to a thrift shop, buying an old educational violin for peanuts (or lashing out a slightly larger sum on a cheap Chinese violin), and "destroying" that? For a $2500 refund, I'm surprised thay don't require the whole, unbroken violin to be returned to PayPal.
The same thing that keeps most people from committing fraud: Either common decency, or fear of getting caught.
Yes and no... if it is a fake, then presumably there'd be no great loss in destroying it. However, it could also be that the buyer is mistaken, and the article is authentic. In that case, it makes more sense to nullify the deal (ie: return the merchandise and refund the money) rather than "nullifying" the merchandise.
There are quite a few very valuable fakes. For example, in the 18th century quite a lot of fake 16th century china was created. So you have stuff that is worth maybe £4,000 because it is an 18th century fake, but would be worth £20,000 if it was the genuine 16th century fake.
You can download Poker Face for $1.29... How much did Apple pay for rights to distribute it? $1.29? Nope. Try hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I don't think Apple pays anything for the right to distribute it. However, they pay 70% of the $1.29 to the rightsholders every time someone buys it, that is about $0.90.
That also answers the claim that the owner doesn't lose anything if you make an illegal copy: If I download from iTunes, they get $0.90. If I make an illegal copy instead, they get nothing. Difference = $0.90
However, there is always the argument being made that if you make a song available for downloading, millions of copies could be made. One argument is that everyone making an illegal download could make that download available to others, creating something like an avalanche of downloads. But that argument is nonsense, because everyone downloading legally from iTunes could make that download available as well. But the reality is, that the copy from one person making downloads available is _not_ copied millions of times. It is quite obvious that average number of illegal downloads from one person equals total number of illegal downloads, divided by number of individuals making downloads available. And that quotient isn't very high.
Whether you think copying something should be illegal or not (it shouldn't), it's impossible for copying to be stealing. The original owner is deprived of NOTHING when a copy is made.
Interestingly, in German law "depriving the owner" is not part of the definition of theft. Theft is "illegally taking away with the intent to enrich yourself".
Thank god we now have Rounded Corners(tm).
Rounded corners since 1984. Unlike X Windows. Long time before Ives. Thanks, Bill Atkinson.
If your actual intent was to make some snide remarks about things that you are clueless about, you should post what you mean so that your arguments can be taken apart.
Proper use of Sir: "The queen is a wrinkled old bag and you are all tools for listening to her, Sirrahs." Seriously, who cares about the proper use of Sir? Nobody in the USA, where we don't have kings, queens, knights... or heroes.
From the Americans that I know, quite a few do. .
:-)
And Martin Luther King's family would disagree, as would the residents of Queens, New York, and all Batman fans on two grounds