And you seem to be assuming that your company's method of call based support is the same as everyone elses. This simply is not the case - take BT in th UK for example. Reseting one's router is the first piece of advice the give and will not do anything until you have done it, regardless of the fault conditions, if the customer opeens with "my phone line is not working and my DSL is off" then telling them to reboot is not going to help and if the customer has any degree of aptitude they are not going to trust the person helping them.
assuming that you know more than the customer is absurd, there are many instances where regardless of the customers level of experience there is nothing they can do but call the company because the fault is on their end - so to assume that they know less than you because they called you is pretty insulting.
I never suggested maliciousness, simply presumptuousness.
Even if this was true in "99% of internet issues" then assumedly these people would tell the people they know, then these people might try it before they call technical support. If it was true when you worked at Applecare it may not be now. Assuming that your customers are stupid is simply not good business.
A Trade Mark is a visual symbol in the form of a word , a device,or a label applied to articles of commerce with a view to indicate to the purchasing public that is a good manufactured or other wise dealt in by a particular person as distinguished from similar goods dealt or manufacture by other persons.
As valid as your point is with respect to Intelectual Property and copyright - they aren't suing someone on the grounds that they are making a word game but because they are trying (at least in Hasbros opinion) to associate with their trademark - which has to be defended or can be lost. If the product still sells under that name for 60 years then why wouldn't they defend it?
Incedentaly the original application for a patent on the game was rejected.
You know, there is a very odd attitude to copyright on Slashdot. We're not talking about patent trolling here, we are talking about a company which owns a trademark which is being infringed by another company. The infringement isn't even subtle, its a play on the very product they have adapted for online use. We aren't talking about a broad sue everyone who designs a word game attitude, we talking about defending a tradename - one which they are evidently in the process of cashing in on with EA.
IANAL but this is about how customers identify with a product and a tradename and in this case there is a strong possibility that a large proportion of this 2.3 million users aren't aware there is a distinction. There are cases where a trademark can enter the lexicon, such as Hoover in the UK (for vacuum cleaner), I wouldn't have said this was one.
How about if the power companies installed the equipment in homes themselves? You know - capitalise on it.
They could get huge volume discounts on the equipment, and use it to top up their grid - kind of like a distributed power system. Given the wide areas supplied by the average power station, it would seem likely that in a similar proportion of all their distributed panels would be receiving sun at the same time.
Now how the customer is recompensed is the problem - is it just their surplus that tops up the grid? Well no - they need to pay in for the equipment. How about a much reduced rate on power - they're still saving.
That sounds ideal and in the long term is probably what will happen. But you need to overcome two massive issues first - leakage and interference between that many components in one space and of course heat dissapation.
I didn't say anything about food shortage. Do believe rules such as the one quoted are causing prices to rise any where near as much as the effect of hauliers being taxed into oblivion, not to mention £1.35 a litre for fuel?
I didn't say it was a good idea. You also need to realise how much shit people are prepared to put up with, especially when its phased in gradually (like Al Gore's story about the frog in an "Inconvenient Truth" - if you raise the water temperature gradually the frog doesn't notice).
Its been shown in the UK before too, the Winter of Discontent in '78. People still put up with it.
The sad thing is, that despite there being several laws in place that could be used to punish these companies (Computer Misuse Act, 1990 and the Data Protection Act, 1998 spring to mind) they wont be.
In light of the number of breaches recently (such as the MOD losing restricted USB sticks, the Inland Revenue losing records and even the damn Navy losing recruiting information), I'll wager the government will introduce another new law to deal with this but still, you know not actually do anything about it.
People won't get off their butts to protect their rights.
I disagree, it seems a question of priorities. When you face a massive recession, strikes, fuel shortages and increased food prices, all while the banks withdraw mortgages and businesses go to the wall, then isues such as IP rights and copyright extension seem insignificant.
Not that I feel they are but under these circumstances, when the average man on the street doesn't understand the problem and doesn't even know there is a problem then these things get slipped in under the radar.
Mind you, that said, those "Knock of Nigel" adverts are really starting to get on my tits.
I'm sorry but that is the most incoherent rant I've ever read.
I don't know where in the EU you live but you seem to have a widely inflated belief in the amount of power it wields. Having lived in the UK all my adult life, other than the tabloid's insistance on reporting (almost entirely incorrectly) "loony EU rules" I cannot name anything that has directly affected my life, in the same way in which I can mention dozens of examples of my own government - fuel prices; taxation; VAT on fuel; no investment in public transport, despite the environment being used as a reason to increase road taxes and make explain why refuse collection is so poor; unelected quangos; politicians raining in obscene expenses with impunity; a legal system that doesn't punish and a police force that is impotant; strikes and trade unionism; all wrapped up in the impending recession despite the huge amounts of money pissed away on stupid schemes and huge amounts of beaurocrats in London.
And if you want to talk about "out of touch" then no need to look as far as the EU, how about a centralised government in London, the most unrepresentative city of the UK where all your decesions are based upon what you see out your little window on a city so seperate to the UK it might as well be an island.
In short, given the complete arse that our own government and most other European governments are making of things, to blame the EU is insane, especially when in real terms they have so little impact on most of us. I'd love it if you were to site examples of where the EU has passed laws "with impunity" or examples of "bullshit of terror" - except in the UK of course where the government has used it as an excuse to chip away at freedom (despite the fact that we all had perfectly normal lives during thirty years of republican mainland terrorism).
The "overcoming" redundancy thing is unusual and I wonder if its linked to the specified time between failures. If the self test in the system operated at a periodicity as large as ten minutes it could miss such intermittent faults. This is why bus systems with self testing bus controllers are normally used in these circumstances. Either way, it shouldn't happen.
The default to scenario, where ever possible, would be to divert to other airports. This is perfectly viable in the UK given the relatively small distances between airports.
While you're right, the key phrase from the article you give is:
ARINC 664 Specification which defines how Commercial Off-the-Shelf networking components will be used for future generation Aircraft Data Networks (ADN).
Specifically, this standard is aimed at use on aircraft not in ATC, in fact because of the weight reduction it offers.
Also not to split hairs but Dublin is not in the UK, this seems trite but is valid as there are different agencies involved. More over, the appropriation of new technologies is obsessive in the UK at present and has been for some time (except in the financial sector). There is a perception that newer is better and that answers to questions nobody asked are best solved by combining off the shelf components in a similar topology to older generation systems.
There is an argument to upgrade ATC due to higher volumes of aircraft but I can't help wonder if there is a bigger drive towards efficiency rather than safety.
I work in aviation and wonder if the terminology being used by the newspaper articles is correct.
It appears to be talking about mode S IFF (Interrogation Friend or Foe) or SIFF radar systems which identify aircraft and appends height data. The speed is the only thing that needs calculating, as it isn't encoded in the pulse train.
Why this is weird is because much older bus technologies are normally used to handle this data being transferred than current network technology, such as MIL-STD-1553.
This makes me wonder if it was one of two things - a system inputing to an ethernet PC system that calculates and displays the information or more likely they are talking about a DLTU type stub connector (or remote terminal) used in such typical buses. This is unlikely because the bus systems they are employed on, the bus controller would have picked up on the failure during continuous built in test and pulled in an alternative.
If its the former then someone needs shooting. ATC is a realtime application and the overhead involved here would be unacceptable. I'm not even sure of the benefit of a network, multiple self contained indiviual terminals would be safer.
Maybe in the IT world but in the electronics world (at least in the UK) its still taught as micros. 6502 assembly is used quite extensively in teaching still here. Civilian industry may like Java and so on but those of us working in systems that require proven reliablity and standards conformity still need to know it.
I heard that in quite a few places a couple of years ago and wondered if it was part of marketing campaign. Anyway, it's here at Princeton anyway. The Penn article is still in Google's cache
Just because Microsoft is missing a trend (with UMPC) doesn't mean they wont click to it and drive for their own products. Remember when they thought the Internet was a flash in the pan? Look how that panned out, anti-trust or not, Netscape is now just a name.
Its explained here better than I can, but its not very interesting. As a serviceman myself, I can tell you that we usually get the Queen's Official Birthday as a grant day. There is talk of introducing a national holiday to recognise the forces but although he majority of UK citizens would probably support it, the smaller, angrier and more vocal liberal and political correctness minority would likely prevent it ever happening.
Slashdot Mirror
And you seem to be assuming that your company's method of call based support is the same as everyone elses. This simply is not the case - take BT in th UK for example. Reseting one's router is the first piece of advice the give and will not do anything until you have done it, regardless of the fault conditions, if the customer opeens with "my phone line is not working and my DSL is off" then telling them to reboot is not going to help and if the customer has any degree of aptitude they are not going to trust the person helping them.
assuming that you know more than the customer is absurd, there are many instances where regardless of the customers level of experience there is nothing they can do but call the company because the fault is on their end - so to assume that they know less than you because they called you is pretty insulting.
I never suggested maliciousness, simply presumptuousness.
Even if this was true in "99% of internet issues" then assumedly these people would tell the people they know, then these people might try it before they call technical support. If it was true when you worked at Applecare it may not be now. Assuming that your customers are stupid is simply not good business.
Well said, there seems to be some really stupid moderation here recently. Do we really need the "redundant" moderation anyway?
That was the point that I was making, Slashdotters are confusing a trademark issue as a copyright issue.
Cute, but I don't need to - because it's similarity or the likelihood of confusion that makes it an issue not the use of a word.
For your second point - from Legal Service India:
As valid as your point is with respect to Intelectual Property and copyright - they aren't suing someone on the grounds that they are making a word game but because they are trying (at least in Hasbros opinion) to associate with their trademark - which has to be defended or can be lost. If the product still sells under that name for 60 years then why wouldn't they defend it?
Incedentaly the original application for a patent on the game was rejected.
You know, there is a very odd attitude to copyright on Slashdot. We're not talking about patent trolling here, we are talking about a company which owns a trademark which is being infringed by another company. The infringement isn't even subtle, its a play on the very product they have adapted for online use. We aren't talking about a broad sue everyone who designs a word game attitude, we talking about defending a tradename - one which they are evidently in the process of cashing in on with EA.
IANAL but this is about how customers identify with a product and a tradename and in this case there is a strong possibility that a large proportion of this 2.3 million users aren't aware there is a distinction. There are cases where a trademark can enter the lexicon, such as Hoover in the UK (for vacuum cleaner), I wouldn't have said this was one.
We could cast Wil Wheaton as the admin. If only there was some way to contact him...
How about if the power companies installed the equipment in homes themselves? You know - capitalise on it.
They could get huge volume discounts on the equipment, and use it to top up their grid - kind of like a distributed power system. Given the wide areas supplied by the average power station, it would seem likely that in a similar proportion of all their distributed panels would be receiving sun at the same time.
Now how the customer is recompensed is the problem - is it just their surplus that tops up the grid? Well no - they need to pay in for the equipment. How about a much reduced rate on power - they're still saving.
That sounds ideal and in the long term is probably what will happen. But you need to overcome two massive issues first - leakage and interference between that many components in one space and of course heat dissapation.
I didn't say anything about food shortage. Do believe rules such as the one quoted are causing prices to rise any where near as much as the effect of hauliers being taxed into oblivion, not to mention £1.35 a litre for fuel?
I didn't say it was a good idea. You also need to realise how much shit people are prepared to put up with, especially when its phased in gradually (like Al Gore's story about the frog in an "Inconvenient Truth" - if you raise the water temperature gradually the frog doesn't notice).
Its been shown in the UK before too, the Winter of Discontent in '78. People still put up with it.
The sad thing is, that despite there being several laws in place that could be used to punish these companies (Computer Misuse Act, 1990 and the Data Protection Act, 1998 spring to mind) they wont be.
In light of the number of breaches recently (such as the MOD losing restricted USB sticks, the Inland Revenue losing records and even the damn Navy losing recruiting information), I'll wager the government will introduce another new law to deal with this but still, you know not actually do anything about it.
I disagree, it seems a question of priorities. When you face a massive recession, strikes, fuel shortages and increased food prices, all while the banks withdraw mortgages and businesses go to the wall, then isues such as IP rights and copyright extension seem insignificant.
Not that I feel they are but under these circumstances, when the average man on the street doesn't understand the problem and doesn't even know there is a problem then these things get slipped in under the radar.
Mind you, that said, those "Knock of Nigel" adverts are really starting to get on my tits.
I'm sorry but that is the most incoherent rant I've ever read.
I don't know where in the EU you live but you seem to have a widely inflated belief in the amount of power it wields. Having lived in the UK all my adult life, other than the tabloid's insistance on reporting (almost entirely incorrectly) "loony EU rules" I cannot name anything that has directly affected my life, in the same way in which I can mention dozens of examples of my own government - fuel prices; taxation; VAT on fuel; no investment in public transport, despite the environment being used as a reason to increase road taxes and make explain why refuse collection is so poor; unelected quangos; politicians raining in obscene expenses with impunity; a legal system that doesn't punish and a police force that is impotant; strikes and trade unionism; all wrapped up in the impending recession despite the huge amounts of money pissed away on stupid schemes and huge amounts of beaurocrats in London.
And if you want to talk about "out of touch" then no need to look as far as the EU, how about a centralised government in London, the most unrepresentative city of the UK where all your decesions are based upon what you see out your little window on a city so seperate to the UK it might as well be an island.
In short, given the complete arse that our own government and most other European governments are making of things, to blame the EU is insane, especially when in real terms they have so little impact on most of us. I'd love it if you were to site examples of where the EU has passed laws "with impunity" or examples of "bullshit of terror" - except in the UK of course where the government has used it as an excuse to chip away at freedom (despite the fact that we all had perfectly normal lives during thirty years of republican mainland terrorism).
The "overcoming" redundancy thing is unusual and I wonder if its linked to the specified time between failures. If the self test in the system operated at a periodicity as large as ten minutes it could miss such intermittent faults. This is why bus systems with self testing bus controllers are normally used in these circumstances. Either way, it shouldn't happen.
Top shelves aren't what they used to be.
The default to scenario, where ever possible, would be to divert to other airports. This is perfectly viable in the UK given the relatively small distances between airports.
While you're right, the key phrase from the article you give is:
Specifically, this standard is aimed at use on aircraft not in ATC, in fact because of the weight reduction it offers.
Also not to split hairs but Dublin is not in the UK, this seems trite but is valid as there are different agencies involved. More over, the appropriation of new technologies is obsessive in the UK at present and has been for some time (except in the financial sector). There is a perception that newer is better and that answers to questions nobody asked are best solved by combining off the shelf components in a similar topology to older generation systems.
There is an argument to upgrade ATC due to higher volumes of aircraft but I can't help wonder if there is a bigger drive towards efficiency rather than safety.
I work in aviation and wonder if the terminology being used by the newspaper articles is correct.
It appears to be talking about mode S IFF (Interrogation Friend or Foe) or SIFF radar systems which identify aircraft and appends height data. The speed is the only thing that needs calculating, as it isn't encoded in the pulse train.
Why this is weird is because much older bus technologies are normally used to handle this data being transferred than current network technology, such as MIL-STD-1553.
This makes me wonder if it was one of two things - a system inputing to an ethernet PC system that calculates and displays the information or more likely they are talking about a DLTU type stub connector (or remote terminal) used in such typical buses. This is unlikely because the bus systems they are employed on, the bus controller would have picked up on the failure during continuous built in test and pulled in an alternative.
If its the former then someone needs shooting. ATC is a realtime application and the overhead involved here would be unacceptable. I'm not even sure of the benefit of a network, multiple self contained indiviual terminals would be safer.
Maybe in the IT world but in the electronics world (at least in the UK) its still taught as micros. 6502 assembly is used quite extensively in teaching still here. Civilian industry may like Java and so on but those of us working in systems that require proven reliablity and standards conformity still need to know it.
I heard that in quite a few places a couple of years ago and wondered if it was part of marketing campaign. Anyway, it's here at Princeton anyway. The Penn article is still in Google's cache
Just because Microsoft is missing a trend (with UMPC) doesn't mean they wont click to it and drive for their own products. Remember when they thought the Internet was a flash in the pan? Look how that panned out, anti-trust or not, Netscape is now just a name.
Wait, that's not burnt coffee...
Its explained here better than I can, but its not very interesting. As a serviceman myself, I can tell you that we usually get the Queen's Official Birthday as a grant day. There is talk of introducing a national holiday to recognise the forces but although he majority of UK citizens would probably support it, the smaller, angrier and more vocal liberal and political correctness minority would likely prevent it ever happening.