Which means that any authority trying to make things more convenient for users should never, ever, do it.
Unless it makes them money.
BART decided to install those repeaters so that people would use the subway. How many extra riders did they get--or existing riders did they keep--by having cell service available in the tunnels?
So organizing a protest where Innocent people getting off trains could be pushed onto electrified rails or in front of moving trains is not significant enough?
Nope.
If your reason contains the words "could", "might", or "possibly", then it is not reason enough. And if you know that innocent people will be pushed onto electrified rails or in front of moving trains, then it might be a better idea to arrest those people who plan to do so rather than shutting off cell service.
You missed the point. The point, of course, being that even if he couldn't pirate, he couldn't pay; no lost sale, no harm done
Good point. I would never consider going to Disneyland. Therefore it's okay if I sneak in because, after all, I wouldn't have gone anyway. They didn't lose any money off of me sneaking in for free.
If you can enrich your own life without hurting anyone else, why shouldn't you?
Because you're getting for free what others are paying for. That is hurting others. Why should you get something for free when others have to pay?
While this is funny (well, it made me smile), it might be interesting to see how an Intelligent Assistant (insert your favorite) might work with this.
One example given above was a car accident. If you see one, you just say, "Hey, let the cops know there's an accident," and your Intelligent Assistant figures out your location and sends "Accident on 110N b4 Rosecrans" and sends it off.
Why should they be notified? So they could wipe it before the FBI got there?
No, but they could be notified afterwards.
Consider a real world example. The police have a search warrant for your house. You're not home. Are they going to call you at work and say, "Hey, we've got a search warrant for your house. Can you come home and unlock the front door?" Nope. You're going to come home and find the door knocked down, maybe some tape across it, and a note saying, "We searched your house. -- The PoPo. P.S. Please clean the cat's litterbox." and a copy of the warrant. I would think that, at the very least, they have to notify you if you ask (eg, "Hello? Police? My house was broken into and everything was ripped apart!" "Oh, yeah, we had a search warrant. By the way, clean the cat's litterbox.")
But I am not a lawyer, so I don't know if it's necessary that they inform you that they are executing a search warrant. But if they do, the owner of the property being seized would be First May and that's who they should be notifying.
Now, again, IANAL. And to draw the real world analogy, if the police are looking for my gun in your car, they definitely have to tell you they're searching your car. I'm not sure they have to tell the me that they're searching for my gun. So I could very well be wrong.
But, personally, I think that's the way it should work.
[...] or even an envelope with my US mail address on it, doesn't associate me reliably with any particular behavior.
"Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie. I put that envelope under that garbage."
Yup. We had one when I was a kid. In fact, we were the only family in our small town that was on a "party line" for about 2 years. It was cheaper than having a "private line." However, when you're the only one on there, you end up paying "party line" prices for what is functionally a "private line."
Eventually, The Phone Company got wise to this and dumped the "party line" and we ended up having to get a private line.
Well, anything is licensable. The question is, can you use it without a license?
Consider the "cloud music" stuff. Apple signed licenses with all the music companies so that their customers could link their music libraries with iTunes Music Store. Turns out, they didn't need to do that.
Which is cheaper? Fighting it in court or just paying a license?
The computer itself was of no interest to the FBI. The data contained on the hard drives was what was of interest to the FBI. That data is owned by May First, not ECN.
This is where things get interesting in regards to who should receive notification. The real-world object being taken is the computer, so ECN should have been notified. However, the warrant was for the data contained on the computer, which is May First.
If I have a box in your car, does the search warrant for said box go to you or to me?
That would actually be an entertaining way to solve this problem. If BART says they're going to turn off the cell service, just phone in a bomb threat saying that there's a bomb that will explode if the service is turned off.
Geoengineering: Could lessen the effects of climate change or could be used to destroy enemies. If I don't like Belgium, making it not rain there or sending hurricanes there for the next 100 years would probably pretty well wipe them out.
I read books on my iPhone, which has a 3.5" screen. It certainly isn't as luxurious as doing so on a Kindle or iPad, but it isn't a horrible thing.
What you need to understand is you're reading the text--not the book. Forget the layout. Find a nice comfortable size for the text that is readable yet doesn't require constant interaction. For me, I get about 2-3 sentences on a screen and that works fine, but YMMV.
Of course, asking Siri, "What is the status of flight 647 on United Airlines" returns a reply, "I can't help you with flights. Sorry!" followed by a little button that says, "Search the web."
Siri "circumvents" Google search for certain things. "Find me a seafood restaurant" will go to Yelp, which has reviews and such. "How many grams in an ounce" will go to Wolfram-Alpha. Otherwise, it sticks it in a query and ships it off to Google.
Needless to say, Google isn't sitting still. "Find me a seafood restaurant" in Google will also provide me a list of local restaurants with reviews, much like Yelp does. Arguably, Google's ratings may be better because they are collected from a broad spectrum of sources (user reviews from various review sites, individual bloggers, professional reviews) versus whoever Apple decided to sign a deal with. Speaking of which, you have to consider what kind of deals are being done in the background. Woz recently pointed out something I found a bit disturbing:
“I used to ask Siri, ‘What are the five biggest lakes in California?’ and it would come back with the answer. Now it just misses. It gives me real estate listings. I used to ask, ‘What are the prime numbers greater than 87?’ and it would answer. Now instead of getting prime numbers, I get listings for prime rib, or prime real estate.”
So where Siri used to give answers, Siri now gives advertising.
Slashdot Mirror
Which means that any authority trying to make things more convenient for users should never, ever, do it.
Unless it makes them money.
BART decided to install those repeaters so that people would use the subway. How many extra riders did they get--or existing riders did they keep--by having cell service available in the tunnels?
So organizing a protest where Innocent people getting off trains could be pushed onto electrified rails or in front of moving trains is not significant enough?
Nope.
If your reason contains the words "could", "might", or "possibly", then it is not reason enough. And if you know that innocent people will be pushed onto electrified rails or in front of moving trains, then it might be a better idea to arrest those people who plan to do so rather than shutting off cell service.
I do agree with you that it's a bit of an "entitled" opinion to have (though a lot of that was given to us by society)
I put it to you, Bucky - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society?
Well, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!
You missed the point. The point, of course, being that even if he couldn't pirate, he couldn't pay; no lost sale, no harm done
Good point. I would never consider going to Disneyland. Therefore it's okay if I sneak in because, after all, I wouldn't have gone anyway. They didn't lose any money off of me sneaking in for free.
If you can enrich your own life without hurting anyone else, why shouldn't you?
Because you're getting for free what others are paying for. That is hurting others. Why should you get something for free when others have to pay?
While this is funny (well, it made me smile), it might be interesting to see how an Intelligent Assistant (insert your favorite) might work with this.
One example given above was a car accident. If you see one, you just say, "Hey, let the cops know there's an accident," and your Intelligent Assistant figures out your location and sends "Accident on 110N b4 Rosecrans" and sends it off.
Agreed.
"accident on 405n @ wilmington"
"pics or it didn't happen."
Why should they be notified? So they could wipe it before the FBI got there?
No, but they could be notified afterwards.
Consider a real world example. The police have a search warrant for your house. You're not home. Are they going to call you at work and say, "Hey, we've got a search warrant for your house. Can you come home and unlock the front door?" Nope. You're going to come home and find the door knocked down, maybe some tape across it, and a note saying, "We searched your house. -- The PoPo. P.S. Please clean the cat's litterbox." and a copy of the warrant. I would think that, at the very least, they have to notify you if you ask (eg, "Hello? Police? My house was broken into and everything was ripped apart!" "Oh, yeah, we had a search warrant. By the way, clean the cat's litterbox.")
But I am not a lawyer, so I don't know if it's necessary that they inform you that they are executing a search warrant. But if they do, the owner of the property being seized would be First May and that's who they should be notifying.
Now, again, IANAL. And to draw the real world analogy, if the police are looking for my gun in your car, they definitely have to tell you they're searching your car. I'm not sure they have to tell the me that they're searching for my gun. So I could very well be wrong.
But, personally, I think that's the way it should work.
[...] or even an envelope with my US mail address on it, doesn't associate me reliably with any particular behavior.
"Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it."
"Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie. I put that envelope under that garbage."
Wow. Time for a new rendition...
Yup. We had one when I was a kid. In fact, we were the only family in our small town that was on a "party line" for about 2 years. It was cheaper than having a "private line." However, when you're the only one on there, you end up paying "party line" prices for what is functionally a "private line."
Eventually, The Phone Company got wise to this and dumped the "party line" and we ended up having to get a private line.
"[...] Hit him with this $5 wrench until he tells us the password."
"Uh...we already shot him."
"Well, that's not going to be helpful..."
Republicans would be offended at the mere thought of doing that.
Well, anything is licensable. The question is, can you use it without a license?
Consider the "cloud music" stuff. Apple signed licenses with all the music companies so that their customers could link their music libraries with iTunes Music Store. Turns out, they didn't need to do that.
Which is cheaper? Fighting it in court or just paying a license?
This is sort of an interesting "cloud" question.
The computer itself was of no interest to the FBI. The data contained on the hard drives was what was of interest to the FBI. That data is owned by May First, not ECN.
This is where things get interesting in regards to who should receive notification. The real-world object being taken is the computer, so ECN should have been notified. However, the warrant was for the data contained on the computer, which is May First.
If I have a box in your car, does the search warrant for said box go to you or to me?
Strange. My dictionary translated that into "My Hovercraft is full of eels."
Ooh...sounds like "Speed 3" has a plot!
That would actually be an entertaining way to solve this problem. If BART says they're going to turn off the cell service, just phone in a bomb threat saying that there's a bomb that will explode if the service is turned off.
But what if it had the voice of Pierce Brosnan?
Personally, I'd be glad to have one my house. Those kids'll think twice before playing on my lawn...
What if you can't change it, you can only observe it?
I gotta admit, that one struck me as odd, too.
Geoengineering: Could lessen the effects of climate change or could be used to destroy enemies. If I don't like Belgium, making it not rain there or sending hurricanes there for the next 100 years would probably pretty well wipe them out.
I have an iPhone 4S and, yes, that's what Siri replies. In fact, it responds that way whether I say "United Airlines" or "United Airways."
I read books on my iPhone, which has a 3.5" screen. It certainly isn't as luxurious as doing so on a Kindle or iPad, but it isn't a horrible thing.
What you need to understand is you're reading the text--not the book. Forget the layout. Find a nice comfortable size for the text that is readable yet doesn't require constant interaction. For me, I get about 2-3 sentences on a screen and that works fine, but YMMV.
Of course, asking Siri, "What is the status of flight 647 on United Airlines" returns a reply, "I can't help you with flights. Sorry!" followed by a little button that says, "Search the web."
Depends on what you ask. But that's a good point.
Siri "circumvents" Google search for certain things. "Find me a seafood restaurant" will go to Yelp, which has reviews and such. "How many grams in an ounce" will go to Wolfram-Alpha. Otherwise, it sticks it in a query and ships it off to Google.
Needless to say, Google isn't sitting still. "Find me a seafood restaurant" in Google will also provide me a list of local restaurants with reviews, much like Yelp does. Arguably, Google's ratings may be better because they are collected from a broad spectrum of sources (user reviews from various review sites, individual bloggers, professional reviews) versus whoever Apple decided to sign a deal with. Speaking of which, you have to consider what kind of deals are being done in the background. Woz recently pointed out something I found a bit disturbing:
So where Siri used to give answers, Siri now gives advertising.
In the TV Series, Jessica was played by Heather Menzies. Nice to look at also, in a 1970s kind of way.
Frankly I don't think anyone dies understanding quantum mechanics.
There may be a certain cat that understands it...