It's as good as any other device out there; better than most and I would argue better by far than Blackberry since company data doesn't have to go through a RIM server.
Not to mention the fact that while a lot of us despair at the number of companies that persist in using Windows Server (and the associated headaches that those of us get who are stuck with having to try to integrate it with other systems in our heterogeneous IT environments), OS X (both client and server) and iOS provides far superior out of the box Exchange Support than even most Windows Mobile Devices and Windows desktop client systems do!
That's not to say it's completely painless (of course) just much, much, less of a hassle! For that reason alone, I've never understand why most System Admins have gone on record as being so adamant about sticking with RIM in their environments as opposed to going to iOS devices!
But as a sidebar I just want to point out how lame "college" has become. It used to be for those serious about their education or the academic subjects, but now it is just another mandatory level of education with the same behavioural problems from those who really have no wish to be in attendance. The fact that we're talking about treating 19 to 24 year olds like small children should tell you how silly the situation is becoming.
Agreed!
Actually, on the whole, I tend to view College Degrees (especially in the sciences) issued in the last 20 years as more and more heading in the direction of a status symbol than proof of gained knowledge through accomplishment. However if I'm talking to somebody who graduated prior to 1980 I always tend to treat them with a great deal more respect because they graduated in an age where if you got a degree (again, particularly in the sciences) it actually meant something!
Most of them have ended up underperforming on tests, and then blaming my teaching for their failure to work up to their potential.
Yes, because clearly the one has nothing to do with the other.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that you're totally responsible for the failure for the student's to perform well on tests, but most of the educational consultants/advocates (myself included) and teachers that I know (and that I've worked with and respect) are still willing to admit (albeit grudgingly) typically these problems occur due to mistakes made on both sides.
I've also found over the years that the side that doesn't take responsibility and refuses to make the effort to try to work to create and implement a compromise solution typically should be assigned more of the blame for the problem than the side that does take responsibility and is actively making an effort to try to correct whatever's not working in the learning process.
We compared performance on tests between sections with teachers that pre-published powerpoint slides and teachers that didn't. Students statistically significantly worse in the sections where they had access to the powerpoint slides.
I'm not clear what your Powerpoint performance study has to do with the use of laptops in class, but I'll still go ahead and point out that many of us with valid reasons to obtain Powerpoint slides and use laptops in class would not have ended up doing as well as we did. Mainly, I'm referring to people like myself who have Dysgraphia [http://goo.gl/GaNDe] and/or other disorders that provide a valid need for us to have laptops and/or other adaptive measures, not for special treatment (or to goof off) but to ensure we fulfill our full potential when in a classroom environment and have the same chance at obtaining a degree that anyone else has.
To paraphrase, students take to math class with a lot less friction if they understand that math at least can be satisfying.
No, my friends (and myself) understood that it could be satisfying for some people and we understood the overall practical applications of math better than many in our class, but we still viewed Calculus as one of the most frustratingly useless non-vocational subjects being taught in schools nowadays (and quite frankly our Ph.D. lab/rocket scientist parents agree with us on that as well).
While I agree that a great deal of the subject's interest varies with the teacher and methodology of teaching said subject, my point was more that I really don't think you can realistically expect the same enthusiasm from the majority of students (or people for that matter) as you can from specialists in a specific field.
The Lockhart article actually does address the issue of making that side of math apparent to novices and laypeople, and makes a pretty persuasive argument that it is possible (if beyond the capabilities of most public school classrooms).
Yes, I read both the Lewis and Lockhart papers, but again, I disagree with that view, as this perhaps goes to a larger issue that so often seems lost on some Slashdot posters: You can't expect people who don't specialize in a specific field to have enthusiasm and/or the inclination to learn about that subject as you do!
It's mostly known as an insightful critique of what's wrong with K-12 math education, but I've always liked it as an explanation of why people who enjoy math do it in the first place: it's satisfying in an artistic way.
Good for you, but for the rest of us, (aka people who don't enjoy or care about math that much) I'm afraid it's merely so much futility and frustration!
The point that seems to be lost here for so many people who talk this way about Math is that in the end anything is an "art" for higher end professionals and enthusiasts of a particular field of study. Personally, I often say that the way you can tell a master from an apprentice is that experience gives them the means to solve problems intuitively, hence for the masters of said field, the subject really can be viewed as much of an art as it is a science!
Let us remember the (slightly paraphrased) immortal writings of Dave Barry on this subject, "One man's vision of art is another man's view of an insanely overpriced "modern art piece" that looks suspiciously similar to the rusted remains of a helicopter crash!"
Personally I hope it is, there are at least three documented cases I know of off the top of my head where iPhones have saved solider's lives by taking a bullet in areas that weren't armored (if indeed any body armor was worn at all)!
Speaking solely from an economic perspective given how much it costs to train troops I think that an iPhone seems a small price to pay as it can save your life someday!
Let's assume that I, a third year software engineering student, don't have the basic skills required to maintain the computer. Or that the world's most used OS is a horrible piece of crap.
Yeah, they both seem like reasonable assumptions to me; although the first assumption actually relies on you not automatically making the second assumption.
This is not an "ethical standard" of Apple's. They are clearly going to use the information for their **own** advertising. They just don't want to pass the information on to benefit anyone else.
Yes, but I don't care if Apple uses it for their own advertising purposes since I can easily opt out of their advertising data collection for profiling (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4228), unlike any of the other companies that Apple could've potentially shared my information with.
Which is in Apple's best interest - just not in the rest of ours interest, as it helps further solidify Apple as a monopoly.
I'm not sure how this make practice helps to make Apple a "monopoly" though?
I mean if anything it would seem to me that this is just going to encourage competition by encouraging advertising companies to look at other mobile platforms for their offerings, which should in anything, foster the competition!
Somehow I think the "few people" killed on 9/11 might have disagreed with you on that but clearly those of us that survive them have to speak up instead.
The thing is: We shall all die some day. There's ways of decreasing risk, but a lot of deaths are clearly related to available resources - if we pushed more resources at the problem, we could decrease deaths. However, we don't have infinite resources, so the right thing is to use the ones we have where they can make the most difference.
I'd be very careful not to cut myself on that double-edged argument your wielding there, as the relative cost of a few lives versus the welfare of society as a whole has a rather nasty historical tendency to be used as a rationalization for discarding civil liberties in general.
If the cost is just regular people and employees being vigilant, some extra staff training, and the occasional announcement? Sure, that sounds like a decent trade off, even for a fairly unlikely scenario.
The problem with that viewpoint (as I stated in my original post above) is that even places with bombings occurring even semi-regularly such as the UK, public awareness campaigns at this point have been repeatedly proven not to be effective counter-measures in preventing bombings.
If the cost is just regular people and employees being vigilant, some extra staff training, and the occasional announcement? Sure, that sounds like a decent trade off, even for a fairly unlikely scenario.
If the cost is a large hunk of our civil liberties? I'm going to want a lot more concrete reason than "might prevent something that might happen, that might not be otherwise prevented" before I'd even consider giving up that much.
Agreed, and if we were talking about something that has significant impacts on people like arbitrarily detaining a traveler because some badged blowhard who's taken a two week course suddenly thinks he's a "profiler" I'd be taking the other side of this argument!
But the problem with using the Civil Liberties argument here is that I don't see how you can seriously argue that some perceived sense of personal embarrassment that you might have for the minute or so it takes you to go through the scanner (or get patted down) ends up being in the same category as being detained in the scenario I described above?
For nearly any example Y2 is a lot bigger than Y1. Terrorist attacks are more spectacular than car accidents. Are my friends who died in car related accidents (several) less worthy to be saved than airline passengers? Nobody argues for no security at all. But safety dollars should be spent where they show the most effect, not where they generate just a show.
Yeah, but the relative extremism of deterrence methodology versus civil liberties is a separate (albeit related) question from how statistically likely a terrorist attack is and the cost impact of implementing said deterrence methods though. Personally I think you're making the mistake of viewing terrorist attacks as natural incidents (like car accidents, getting struck by lighting, etc.) not as an emerging front in an ongoing battle in a war so it might be more prudent to say that it's only as statistically unlikely as it is prior to a lot of people getting killed in the next attack. Personally, I guess I'd rather try to tip the scales in advance to that happening rather than taking steps to adjust security priorities after a ton of people have been killed.
911 was so effective because (nearly) nobody seriously anticipated such an attack. The next big attack will be as un-anticipated as the last one. They just don't xerox their last op plans and try to pull them off again. All reasonable security measure against a re-occurrence has already been taken years ago. Is this a reason to start implementing the unreasonable ones?
I've heard this argument from people who are pushing hijacking statistics from the 80s, but I guess my view on that is to say that clearly 9/11 was a really high body count for a "fluke." Questions of effectiveness of methodology aside, the underwear/shoe bomber efforts would seem to invalidate your argument regarding attack methods. To paraphrase Mark Twain, attack methods may not be Xeroxed but they may still rhyme!
Bottom line for me here is that as methods continue to evolve in sophistication, then shouldn't our deterrence methods grow in sophistication as well?
And it's completely their capitalistic right to do both - unless our regulated market realizes it's in the best interest of consumer choice to *not* allow Apple to have this potential stranglehold on information. What if Apple becomes the default magazine-delivery platform, and they decided they don't want to host any magazines OR ads that say good things about Android? Or mention that the new iPhone (x) has a tendency to explode?
I think you're loosing sight of the reality of the article here is favor of pushing an abstract (and IMHO absurd) personal opinion. Apple is protecting the rights of the consumers such as myself by not wanting to share their personal information with other companies. I mean personally I can kind of understand about why most companies don't want to take these sorts of ethical stands against positions that would be much more profitable (like say, sharing a bunch of personal information) if all everybody wants to do is lambast them with criticism for not doing enough?
Now we have the "irrational basis" test, replacing all three, which says that if the government can come up with any scenario where allowing their violation might be good, or any scenario where protecting the right implicated might cause harm, no matter how implausible and farfetched, the government's action is allowed.
Yes, but prior to 9/11, how plausible would it have struck you that a group of Islamic Extremists could hijack four commercial airliners and perform kamikaze attacks with them?
Implausible isn't the same thing as impossible, and even in areas where bombings are fairly frequent (UK is a great example for this), people have still not been inclined to report suspicious bags and packages because it's ultimately more plausible to them that someone just misplaced/forgot it thereby leaving it there.
Now to be fair, way more often that not in the scenario that I described above, a lost bag is just a lost bag, but the question you have to ask yourself is that if it only takes one package that is actually filled with explosives to kill a bunch of people shouldn't additional security measures be taken to help deter that outcome, however unlikely it may actually be, from happening?
Don't get me wrong here, I think there are lines about civil liberties versus security that need to be drawn, but I think profiling people is a lot more potentially dangerous to civil liberties than going through a body scanner or pat down, so if I think if there is a line to be drawn on civil rights that's where it should be placed, not here just because people are trying to use this issue as an excuse to mask concerns they might have with themselves regarding body image issues.
Personally, considering America's current obesity rate, I'm actually more inclined to feel sorry for the TSA person who has to regularly look at the (near) nude images of those passengers who should really be buying two seats but aren't.;)
...Or at least she would have if she hadn't been killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Just because something is statistically unlikely, doesn't make it any less stupid not to take necessary (which given the potential consequences of not having these measures, I'm inclined to view as more important than reasonable) precautions against it happening.
It's tempting to think of animals as computer systems, where a single computer virus can easy take over identical systems with nearly identical ease. However, the immune system just doesn't work like that. To use a crude and somewhat misleading example, factory farms are like networks of computers running Windows XP with no service patch, no firewall, and no built in antivirus. However, every 4 hours, a godlike remote antivirus scan is run, and purges each system. If a virus or a bacterial strain is powerful enough to kill a line of Dollies, it's most likely strong enough to kill a line of sheep on the constant verge of death.
Your metaphor is close (I know it's supposed to be imperfect, so please forgive my nitpicking here;) but it might be slightly more accurate to say that after detecting malware, your body's Anti-Virus system then self-generates on the fly system patches and definition updates to itself to allow it in order to better combat said viruses.
Interestingly enough, your body's Anti-Virus system also has the ability to run diagnostic tests on your body by making major adjustments to hardware configuration settings and then using the altered settings it finds effective as a means to aid in it's efforts to combat the attacking malware!
It's really pretty sophisticated when you think about it...
How can Apple ever hope to become a serious part of community infrastructure when they display this level of disrespect for their customers
I think the point that you and so many others seem to be missing is that Apple has no interest in becoming part of a "community infrastructure."
They're a business so they want to actually make money, rather than worrying about community infrastructure, competition, marketshare, etc., and given their record performance in the midst of a huge recession I'd say that seems to be working out quite well for them so far.
Not even Microsoft had the greedy foolishness to prohibit its competitor's software from running on their platform.
Um, that's not quite accurate, over the years Microsoft has done everything they possibly can to prevent competitor's software from running on Windows, I mean how do you think Office ended up with the such a huge marketshare?!
You can check out StuartHankins post above regarding this issue, and he didn't even mention how much malicious tampering they did with APIs to make it as hard as possible for competitor's to develop their software, the outright attempted hijacking of Java development on Windows, not to mention the "Windows Logo Testing" error extortion scheme!
In the end, though the "Logo Testing" practice backfired on them as the main reason (that nobody mentions for fear of NDA lawsuits;) that Vista's hardware support was so awful, was that most hardware companies didn't want to pony up thousands of dollars in fees for what was essentially a rubber stamp "driver testing" process!
The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Microsoft offers the illusion of freedom for it's users, whereas Apple (regarding iOS) maintains a closed device/developer ecosystem which quite frankly I can see an argument for given how prevalent malware is on the Android Marketplace, currently.
My Real Problem With DLC is that it drives DRM!
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Not to mention driving the industry in general off a cliff, by giving credence to the concept that products that I can still buy physically in a store are actually services that I can only legally use at the publisher's discretion!
Most politicians (and by that I mean Congress) waste enough time on my nickel (speaking as someone who would be a taxpayer if I made enough money for the federal government not to refund pretty much all of it;) that quite honestly I would prefer that they would be required to Tweet every 15 minutes so we can account for every moment of their time in office!
I'd also like a requirement that Pictures and Geotagging have to be included, not just to ensure against fraudulent Tweets, but also to be used in evidence in the next (and there will always be a next time) sexual misconduct charge! In fact, given the fact that anyone in public service should not have any expectation of privacy, let's include a requirement for an entry whenever a member of congress enters the restroom! This way we can clearly establish not just who took the last square of toilet paper and/or soap without reporting it to maintenance, but whether or not a congressman really is reaching for a paper left on the floor and not, in fact, asking for sexual favors from the man in stall next to him in a restroom!
But then I figured out the trick to managing it successfully, which is to develop an even bigger tendency to procrastinate to serve as part of a counter-balance of passive-aggressiveness to the OCD part of your personality!
Just remember, whenever somebody asks you to do something, be sure to remind them that they're enabling your OCD by requiring you to accomplish something!
Well for the advertising piece I guess I'm not sure why everyone automatically makes the assumption that Facebook is giving any specific personally identifiable information about you to advertisers? I know they've had a couple of widely reported problems here and there, but I guess I assumed that FaceBook was operating in a similar manner to Google, in that advertising aggregation is done in house?
Personally I guess I assumed that that the reason that companies hire outside advertising firms is to promote their products is that it saves them from having to invest to develop a strategy in an arena that they don't have any prior experience in and probably would not get enough money out of compared to development costs?
Therefore as a result, the reason that companies that provide free online services (Facebook, Yelp, Google, Slashdot, etc.) retain such a massive sales force is in order to promote themselves to businesses by saying we have x amount of people interested in y field (that you are in) pay us z amount of money and we will push your product/service to them in the form of online advertising.
But I guess it seems to me that giving specific information on people seems like an unnecessary risk.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that Zuckerberg and others of his ilk care about us consumers any further the they can exploit us for the purposes of making money, but with a few key exceptions, I'm afraid that's really the state of business as a whole nowadays.
Remember though, if you start giving out customer specific information, doesn't that mak it much harder to exaggerate/manipulate the numbers you provide to companies to get them to pay you for pushing their products/services through your online service?
Incidentally, I feel I should also mention I know one of the big reasons a lot of people always get hysterical about applications/services potentially retaining/sharing medical information for fear of problems with insurance. However, I hate to burst the bubble of everyone who has already commented about this here, but that's actually a very big misconception.
The sad truth is that insurance companies can already do that as they automatically gain access to all your medical records when you apply for a policy and they already have a lot of industry funded companies that aggregate and share that information across the industry to prevent people with serious health problems from getting insurance.
As a result, they don't need to pay another outside company to aggregate data in that way when for the most part they can already access the information they need to turn you down for free!
By the way, does anyone else find it really ironic that although most people here keep raving about privacy online, that Geeknet Inc., does aggregated advertising on all the sites they own? Which, by the way, includes Slashdot? Yet somehow we don't still don't see the majority of people posting as anonymous cowards though. I guess us Facebook users aren't alone in either failing to realize/rationalizing off privacy concerns for online services we want to use?
Then again, I suppose the preference for most Slashdot users (myself included) is to criticize Facebook for privacy concerns online rather then giving in and submitting our personal information for the purposes of (god forbid) meeting/connecting with people in real life.;)
Their entertainment division (mainly because of the Xbox, although other things (like Zune) get run out of there) is profitable and doesn't rely in institutional purchasers at all.
You caught me, you're right. Rather you're half-right.
I forgot they merged the entertainment with the devices in 2005 to help bury the fact that the XBox 360 still takes a loss on every console sold, although how much is a matter of some debate in the industry.
So while the mobile devices side of the entertainment division fence makes money, the 360 and the Zune are basically write-offs.
Now they're trying to foist the idea of a caste system on the rest of the poor sods out there stuck using Windows (not just the ones working at Microsoft) because of idiotic decisions on workplace IT policies made by people who don't end up having to support and implement what ends up being purchased. Or those IT heads incompetent enough to still keep continuing to promote using any Microsoft software.
I've maintained for several years now that the above point is the main reason that Windows, Office and Server are pretty much the only thing keeping Microsoft solvent, as those three divisions' continuing success mainly hinges on the applied wisdom of decision making by the heads of educational, corporate and government institutions regarding technical matters (or rather the complete lack thereof) rather than Microsoft making any discernable effort regarding the quality of the products and services they provide...
Slashdot Mirror
It's as good as any other device out there; better than most and I would argue better by far than Blackberry since company data doesn't have to go through a RIM server.
Not to mention the fact that while a lot of us despair at the number of companies that persist in using Windows Server (and the associated headaches that those of us get who are stuck with having to try to integrate it with other systems in our heterogeneous IT environments), OS X (both client and server) and iOS provides far superior out of the box Exchange Support than even most Windows Mobile Devices and Windows desktop client systems do!
That's not to say it's completely painless (of course) just much, much, less of a hassle! For that reason alone, I've never understand why most System Admins have gone on record as being so adamant about sticking with RIM in their environments as opposed to going to iOS devices!
But as a sidebar I just want to point out how lame "college" has become. It used to be for those serious about their education or the academic subjects, but now it is just another mandatory level of education with the same behavioural problems from those who really have no wish to be in attendance. The fact that we're talking about treating 19 to 24 year olds like small children should tell you how silly the situation is becoming.
Agreed!
Actually, on the whole, I tend to view College Degrees (especially in the sciences) issued in the last 20 years as more and more heading in the direction of a status symbol than proof of gained knowledge through accomplishment. However if I'm talking to somebody who graduated prior to 1980 I always tend to treat them with a great deal more respect because they graduated in an age where if you got a degree (again, particularly in the sciences) it actually meant something!
Most of them have ended up underperforming on tests, and then blaming my teaching for their failure to work up to their potential.
Yes, because clearly the one has nothing to do with the other.
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that you're totally responsible for the failure for the student's to perform well on tests, but most of the educational consultants/advocates (myself included) and teachers that I know (and that I've worked with and respect) are still willing to admit (albeit grudgingly) typically these problems occur due to mistakes made on both sides.
I've also found over the years that the side that doesn't take responsibility and refuses to make the effort to try to work to create and implement a compromise solution typically should be assigned more of the blame for the problem than the side that does take responsibility and is actively making an effort to try to correct whatever's not working in the learning process.
We compared performance on tests between sections with teachers that pre-published powerpoint slides and teachers that didn't. Students statistically significantly worse in the sections where they had access to the powerpoint slides.
I'm not clear what your Powerpoint performance study has to do with the use of laptops in class, but I'll still go ahead and point out that many of us with valid reasons to obtain Powerpoint slides and use laptops in class would not have ended up doing as well as we did. Mainly, I'm referring to people like myself who have Dysgraphia [http://goo.gl/GaNDe] and/or other disorders that provide a valid need for us to have laptops and/or other adaptive measures, not for special treatment (or to goof off) but to ensure we fulfill our full potential when in a classroom environment and have the same chance at obtaining a degree that anyone else has.
The students pay his salary by choosing to attend his class. If he had no students in his classes, the university would let him go.
Assuming he isn't tenured, of course!
To paraphrase, students take to math class with a lot less friction if they understand that math at least can be satisfying.
No, my friends (and myself) understood that it could be satisfying for some people and we understood the overall practical applications of math better than many in our class, but we still viewed Calculus as one of the most frustratingly useless non-vocational subjects being taught in schools nowadays (and quite frankly our Ph.D. lab/rocket scientist parents agree with us on that as well).
While I agree that a great deal of the subject's interest varies with the teacher and methodology of teaching said subject, my point was more that I really don't think you can realistically expect the same enthusiasm from the majority of students (or people for that matter) as you can from specialists in a specific field.
The Lockhart article actually does address the issue of making that side of math apparent to novices and laypeople, and makes a pretty persuasive argument that it is possible (if beyond the capabilities of most public school classrooms).
Yes, I read both the Lewis and Lockhart papers, but again, I disagree with that view, as this perhaps goes to a larger issue that so often seems lost on some Slashdot posters: You can't expect people who don't specialize in a specific field to have enthusiasm and/or the inclination to learn about that subject as you do!
Dave Barry is awesome. :)
I'm glad to see we can agree on something, LOL!
It's mostly known as an insightful critique of what's wrong with K-12 math education, but I've always liked it as an explanation of why people who enjoy math do it in the first place: it's satisfying in an artistic way.
Good for you, but for the rest of us, (aka people who don't enjoy or care about math that much) I'm afraid it's merely so much futility and frustration!
The point that seems to be lost here for so many people who talk this way about Math is that in the end anything is an "art" for higher end professionals and enthusiasts of a particular field of study. Personally, I often say that the way you can tell a master from an apprentice is that experience gives them the means to solve problems intuitively, hence for the masters of said field, the subject really can be viewed as much of an art as it is a science!
Let us remember the (slightly paraphrased) immortal writings of Dave Barry on this subject, "One man's vision of art is another man's view of an insanely overpriced "modern art piece" that looks suspiciously similar to the rusted remains of a helicopter crash!"
I doubt this is intended for the battlefield.
Personally I hope it is, there are at least three documented cases I know of off the top of my head where iPhones have saved solider's lives by taking a bullet in areas that weren't armored (if indeed any body armor was worn at all)!
Speaking solely from an economic perspective given how much it costs to train troops I think that an iPhone seems a small price to pay as it can save your life someday!
Let's assume that I, a third year software engineering student, don't have the basic skills required to maintain the computer. Or that the world's most used OS is a horrible piece of crap.
Yeah, they both seem like reasonable assumptions to me; although the first assumption actually relies on you not automatically making the second assumption.
This is not an "ethical standard" of Apple's. They are clearly going to use the information for their **own** advertising. They just don't want to pass the information on to benefit anyone else.
Yes, but I don't care if Apple uses it for their own advertising purposes since I can easily opt out of their advertising data collection for profiling (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4228), unlike any of the other companies that Apple could've potentially shared my information with.
Which is in Apple's best interest - just not in the rest of ours interest, as it helps further solidify Apple as a monopoly.
I'm not sure how this make practice helps to make Apple a "monopoly" though?
I mean if anything it would seem to me that this is just going to encourage competition by encouraging advertising companies to look at other mobile platforms for their offerings, which should in anything, foster the competition!
A few people killed is a fairly low cost.
Somehow I think the "few people" killed on 9/11 might have disagreed with you on that but clearly those of us that survive them have to speak up instead.
The thing is: We shall all die some day. There's ways of decreasing risk, but a lot of deaths are clearly related to available resources - if we pushed more resources at the problem, we could decrease deaths. However, we don't have infinite resources, so the right thing is to use the ones we have where they can make the most difference.
I'd be very careful not to cut myself on that double-edged argument your wielding there, as the relative cost of a few lives versus the welfare of society as a whole has a rather nasty historical tendency to be used as a rationalization for discarding civil liberties in general.
If the cost is just regular people and employees being vigilant, some extra staff training, and the occasional announcement? Sure, that sounds like a decent trade off, even for a fairly unlikely scenario.
The problem with that viewpoint (as I stated in my original post above) is that even places with bombings occurring even semi-regularly such as the UK, public awareness campaigns at this point have been repeatedly proven not to be effective counter-measures in preventing bombings.
If the cost is just regular people and employees being vigilant, some extra staff training, and the occasional announcement? Sure, that sounds like a decent trade off, even for a fairly unlikely scenario. If the cost is a large hunk of our civil liberties? I'm going to want a lot more concrete reason than "might prevent something that might happen, that might not be otherwise prevented" before I'd even consider giving up that much.
Agreed, and if we were talking about something that has significant impacts on people like arbitrarily detaining a traveler because some badged blowhard who's taken a two week course suddenly thinks he's a "profiler" I'd be taking the other side of this argument!
But the problem with using the Civil Liberties argument here is that I don't see how you can seriously argue that some perceived sense of personal embarrassment that you might have for the minute or so it takes you to go through the scanner (or get patted down) ends up being in the same category as being detained in the scenario I described above?
For nearly any example Y2 is a lot bigger than Y1. Terrorist attacks are more spectacular than car accidents. Are my friends who died in car related accidents (several) less worthy to be saved than airline passengers? Nobody argues for no security at all. But safety dollars should be spent where they show the most effect, not where they generate just a show.
Yeah, but the relative extremism of deterrence methodology versus civil liberties is a separate (albeit related) question from how statistically likely a terrorist attack is and the cost impact of implementing said deterrence methods though. Personally I think you're making the mistake of viewing terrorist attacks as natural incidents (like car accidents, getting struck by lighting, etc.) not as an emerging front in an ongoing battle in a war so it might be more prudent to say that it's only as statistically unlikely as it is prior to a lot of people getting killed in the next attack. Personally, I guess I'd rather try to tip the scales in advance to that happening rather than taking steps to adjust security priorities after a ton of people have been killed.
911 was so effective because (nearly) nobody seriously anticipated such an attack. The next big attack will be as un-anticipated as the last one. They just don't xerox their last op plans and try to pull them off again. All reasonable security measure against a re-occurrence has already been taken years ago. Is this a reason to start implementing the unreasonable ones?
I've heard this argument from people who are pushing hijacking statistics from the 80s, but I guess my view on that is to say that clearly 9/11 was a really high body count for a "fluke." Questions of effectiveness of methodology aside, the underwear/shoe bomber efforts would seem to invalidate your argument regarding attack methods. To paraphrase Mark Twain, attack methods may not be Xeroxed but they may still rhyme!
Bottom line for me here is that as methods continue to evolve in sophistication, then shouldn't our deterrence methods grow in sophistication as well?
And it's completely their capitalistic right to do both - unless our regulated market realizes it's in the best interest of consumer choice to *not* allow Apple to have this potential stranglehold on information. What if Apple becomes the default magazine-delivery platform, and they decided they don't want to host any magazines OR ads that say good things about Android? Or mention that the new iPhone (x) has a tendency to explode?
I think you're loosing sight of the reality of the article here is favor of pushing an abstract (and IMHO absurd) personal opinion. Apple is protecting the rights of the consumers such as myself by not wanting to share their personal information with other companies. I mean personally I can kind of understand about why most companies don't want to take these sorts of ethical stands against positions that would be much more profitable (like say, sharing a bunch of personal information) if all everybody wants to do is lambast them with criticism for not doing enough?
Now we have the "irrational basis" test, replacing all three, which says that if the government can come up with any scenario where allowing their violation might be good, or any scenario where protecting the right implicated might cause harm, no matter how implausible and farfetched, the government's action is allowed.
Yes, but prior to 9/11, how plausible would it have struck you that a group of Islamic Extremists could hijack four commercial airliners and perform kamikaze attacks with them?
Implausible isn't the same thing as impossible, and even in areas where bombings are fairly frequent (UK is a great example for this), people have still not been inclined to report suspicious bags and packages because it's ultimately more plausible to them that someone just misplaced/forgot it thereby leaving it there.
Now to be fair, way more often that not in the scenario that I described above, a lost bag is just a lost bag, but the question you have to ask yourself is that if it only takes one package that is actually filled with explosives to kill a bunch of people shouldn't additional security measures be taken to help deter that outcome, however unlikely it may actually be, from happening?
Don't get me wrong here, I think there are lines about civil liberties versus security that need to be drawn, but I think profiling people is a lot more potentially dangerous to civil liberties than going through a body scanner or pat down, so if I think if there is a line to be drawn on civil rights that's where it should be placed, not here just because people are trying to use this issue as an excuse to mask concerns they might have with themselves regarding body image issues.
Personally, considering America's current obesity rate, I'm actually more inclined to feel sorry for the TSA person who has to regularly look at the (near) nude images of those passengers who should really be buying two seats but aren't. ;)
Just because something is statistically unlikely, doesn't make it any less stupid not to take necessary (which given the potential consequences of not having these measures, I'm inclined to view as more important than reasonable) precautions against it happening.
It's tempting to think of animals as computer systems, where a single computer virus can easy take over identical systems with nearly identical ease. However, the immune system just doesn't work like that. To use a crude and somewhat misleading example, factory farms are like networks of computers running Windows XP with no service patch, no firewall, and no built in antivirus. However, every 4 hours, a godlike remote antivirus scan is run, and purges each system. If a virus or a bacterial strain is powerful enough to kill a line of Dollies, it's most likely strong enough to kill a line of sheep on the constant verge of death.
Your metaphor is close (I know it's supposed to be imperfect, so please forgive my nitpicking here ;) but it might be slightly more accurate to say that after detecting malware, your body's Anti-Virus system then self-generates on the fly system patches and definition updates to itself to allow it in order to better combat said viruses.
Interestingly enough, your body's Anti-Virus system also has the ability to run diagnostic tests on your body by making major adjustments to hardware configuration settings and then using the altered settings it finds effective as a means to aid in it's efforts to combat the attacking malware!
It's really pretty sophisticated when you think about it...
I'd sure like to know!
How can Apple ever hope to become a serious part of community infrastructure when they display this level of disrespect for their customers
I think the point that you and so many others seem to be missing is that Apple has no interest in becoming part of a "community infrastructure."
They're a business so they want to actually make money, rather than worrying about community infrastructure, competition, marketshare, etc., and given their record performance in the midst of a huge recession I'd say that seems to be working out quite well for them so far.
Not even Microsoft had the greedy foolishness to prohibit its competitor's software from running on their platform.
Um, that's not quite accurate, over the years Microsoft has done everything they possibly can to prevent competitor's software from running on Windows, I mean how do you think Office ended up with the such a huge marketshare?!
You can check out StuartHankins post above regarding this issue, and he didn't even mention how much malicious tampering they did with APIs to make it as hard as possible for competitor's to develop their software, the outright attempted hijacking of Java development on Windows, not to mention the "Windows Logo Testing" error extortion scheme!
In the end, though the "Logo Testing" practice backfired on them as the main reason (that nobody mentions for fear of NDA lawsuits ;) that Vista's hardware support was so awful, was that most hardware companies didn't want to pony up thousands of dollars in fees for what was essentially a rubber stamp "driver testing" process!
The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Microsoft offers the illusion of freedom for it's users, whereas Apple (regarding iOS) maintains a closed device/developer ecosystem which quite frankly I can see an argument for given how prevalent malware is on the Android Marketplace, currently.
Not to mention driving the industry in general off a cliff, by giving credence to the concept that products that I can still buy physically in a store are actually services that I can only legally use at the publisher's discretion!
Personally I'm outraged by this news!
Most politicians (and by that I mean Congress) waste enough time on my nickel (speaking as someone who would be a taxpayer if I made enough money for the federal government not to refund pretty much all of it ;) that quite honestly I would prefer that they would be required to Tweet every 15 minutes so we can account for every moment of their time in office!
I'd also like a requirement that Pictures and Geotagging have to be included, not just to ensure against fraudulent Tweets, but also to be used in evidence in the next (and there will always be a next time) sexual misconduct charge! In fact, given the fact that anyone in public service should not have any expectation of privacy, let's include a requirement for an entry whenever a member of congress enters the restroom! This way we can clearly establish not just who took the last square of toilet paper and/or soap without reporting it to maintenance, but whether or not a congressman really is reaching for a paper left on the floor and not, in fact, asking for sexual favors from the man in stall next to him in a restroom!
But then I figured out the trick to managing it successfully, which is to develop an even bigger tendency to procrastinate to serve as part of a counter-balance of passive-aggressiveness to the OCD part of your personality!
Just remember, whenever somebody asks you to do something, be sure to remind them that they're enabling your OCD by requiring you to accomplish something!
Well for the advertising piece I guess I'm not sure why everyone automatically makes the assumption that Facebook is giving any specific personally identifiable information about you to advertisers? I know they've had a couple of widely reported problems here and there, but I guess I assumed that FaceBook was operating in a similar manner to Google, in that advertising aggregation is done in house?
Personally I guess I assumed that that the reason that companies hire outside advertising firms is to promote their products is that it saves them from having to invest to develop a strategy in an arena that they don't have any prior experience in and probably would not get enough money out of compared to development costs?
Therefore as a result, the reason that companies that provide free online services (Facebook, Yelp, Google, Slashdot, etc.) retain such a massive sales force is in order to promote themselves to businesses by saying we have x amount of people interested in y field (that you are in) pay us z amount of money and we will push your product/service to them in the form of online advertising.
But I guess it seems to me that giving specific information on people seems like an unnecessary risk.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive enough to think that Zuckerberg and others of his ilk care about us consumers any further the they can exploit us for the purposes of making money, but with a few key exceptions, I'm afraid that's really the state of business as a whole nowadays.
Remember though, if you start giving out customer specific information, doesn't that mak it much harder to exaggerate/manipulate the numbers you provide to companies to get them to pay you for pushing their products/services through your online service?
Incidentally, I feel I should also mention I know one of the big reasons a lot of people always get hysterical about applications/services potentially retaining/sharing medical information for fear of problems with insurance. However, I hate to burst the bubble of everyone who has already commented about this here, but that's actually a very big misconception.
The sad truth is that insurance companies can already do that as they automatically gain access to all your medical records when you apply for a policy and they already have a lot of industry funded companies that aggregate and share that information across the industry to prevent people with serious health problems from getting insurance.
As a result, they don't need to pay another outside company to aggregate data in that way when for the most part they can already access the information they need to turn you down for free!
By the way, does anyone else find it really ironic that although most people here keep raving about privacy online, that Geeknet Inc., does aggregated advertising on all the sites they own? Which, by the way, includes Slashdot? Yet somehow we don't still don't see the majority of people posting as anonymous cowards though. I guess us Facebook users aren't alone in either failing to realize/rationalizing off privacy concerns for online services we want to use?
Then again, I suppose the preference for most Slashdot users (myself included) is to criticize Facebook for privacy concerns online rather then giving in and submitting our personal information for the purposes of (god forbid) meeting/connecting with people in real life. ;)
Their entertainment division (mainly because of the Xbox, although other things (like Zune) get run out of there) is profitable and doesn't rely in institutional purchasers at all.
You caught me, you're right. Rather you're half-right.
I forgot they merged the entertainment with the devices in 2005 to help bury the fact that the XBox 360 still takes a loss on every console sold, although how much is a matter of some debate in the industry.
So while the mobile devices side of the entertainment division fence makes money, the 360 and the Zune are basically write-offs.
Now they're trying to foist the idea of a caste system on the rest of the poor sods out there stuck using Windows (not just the ones working at Microsoft) because of idiotic decisions on workplace IT policies made by people who don't end up having to support and implement what ends up being purchased. Or those IT heads incompetent enough to still keep continuing to promote using any Microsoft software.
I've maintained for several years now that the above point is the main reason that Windows, Office and Server are pretty much the only thing keeping Microsoft solvent, as those three divisions' continuing success mainly hinges on the applied wisdom of decision making by the heads of educational, corporate and government institutions regarding technical matters (or rather the complete lack thereof) rather than Microsoft making any discernable effort regarding the quality of the products and services they provide...
...Bah, wake me up when Sonic turns 20 next year! Meantime to all the new youngsters playing on your Wii's, quit Duck Hunting on my Lawn!