Smart shopping. Of course, if he was really smart, he'd go forward in time and pick up an iPhone 6 from just before the iPhone 7 comes out, bring it back in time to a couple years ago, and then he can post here on Slashdot that "my phone has had that functionality for 10 years, jeez, why do you fanbois get so excited over this crap?" when the iPhone 6 is released in a few years!
I get the whole "I can look at the source code" argument, I just think it's a weak argument for open source in general, because most people don't know what they're looking at, and wouldn't know where to even begin.
Point is, something being "open source" doesn't guarantee safety or security, and without verifying the safety yourself, you really are left trusting to the benevolence of strangers, whether or not it's open source. You chimed in to say that you install a custom ROM on your phone as an example of how your phone does much more to protect your privacy... so I thought the natural followup to that would be to ask if you've actually read the source code yourself, or if you just extend that trust to someone else.
then why did they photoshop in more stuff on the screens, and more people standing around pointing at shit?
Two points. a) They didn't photoshop in "more people standing around pointing at shit" in the photo under discussion. You're either talking about a completely different photo I'm unaware of, or you haven't bothered to look at the photo being discussed. Either way, that clause of your argument is irrelevant. b) They photoshopped "more stuff" on the screens by cutting & pasting the image from existing screens. Is this evidence of an inane fear of showing a "blank computer screen in a crisis center!"? Sure. Is this evidence of a diabolical master plan? Not unless you've got your tinfoil hat firmly in place and REALLY stretch for it.
So, here's how this issue could have played out: 1) BP releases unedited photo of crisis center. You immediately begin shouting about how "three unused screens, they must not be working that hard if they don't even have enough data to fill them," and how if they were REALLY working hard, there'd be more PhDs frowning thoughtfully over the blank screens in the original.
2) BP releases this edited photo of their crisis center. You immediately being shouting about how "photoshopping the screen to eliminate a huge white glare in the middle of the photo" is evidence of a diabolical master plan to make us think they're doing something when in reality they're just sitting there waiting for... well, for what, exactly? Every day this leak goes on, BP is hemorrhaging money and goodwill. Nobody's going to kill the well for them. Do you think that they're just sitting there hoping people will forget that the well is leaking, so they can pack up and go home?
Either way, you will interpret the information to suit your preordained conclusion, which is that BP is double-plus-ungood-evil-bad-wicked-naughty, and that everything they do is an attempt to avoid responsibility and avoid having to pay for or fix the mess they've made. Furthermore, since you apparently don't know fuck-all about how to stop a leaking oil well, or what is involved in doing so, all of your input here is just armchair quarterbacking about how you think an oil well capping operation "should" look, based on your vast experience of having once watched Armageddon, Deep Impact, and 2012 in all their big-screen glory.
The question is, how is "6 random dudes on the internet who've looked at the source code say it's okay" any different from "6 random dudes who work for some company say the source code is okay."
"Being on the internet" doesn't magically make the people who can and do review the source code smarter or more capable of finding bugs. You're taking someone's word for it that it's safe just as much as if the project wasn't open source, so what's the functional difference?
"I CAN look at the source code" is meaningless if you don't have the expertise or requisite interest TO look at the source code - without verification, it's still an exercise in trusting to the benevolence of strangers.
Are you really going to sit there and tell me the camera has no way to tell that the photographer hasn't set its clock? I sure fucking hope you're not a programmer or planning to become one.
Pray tell, how does a camera programatically determine that the time entered by the photographer is correct?
Anyone involved with a crisis at BP should be in a constant flurry of activity any time they're not sleeping, and if that is not true then BP is wasting resources that should be used to further cleanup.
Right, because the thousands of people involved in the crisis response should all just be doing "something" regardless of whether or not that actually helps kill the leak & clean up the oil. Maybe next we'll ask them to do jumping jacks whenever they stop to think about something, just so they LOOK really active. Maybe we can make the IT guys start drilling their own relief well too. And the secretaries.
I suspect your expectations of what a "crisis response" should look like comes directly from watching too many Hollywood disaster movies.
Wouldn't it make more sense, then, to simply omit the data from the header instead of including some incorrect data? It's incompetent no matter what you think the solution is.
Why would you? The time & date the photo was taken is useful information - the camera itself doesn't know "what day it is" unless you tell it. So why omit potentially useful data because the photographer didn't set the camera's clock, and the camera has no way of determining that itself?
How about "too incompetent to take publicity photos on a day when they will make the place look busy", or "too incompetent to hire someone who can use photoshop better than a mongoloid on crack"?
What if the place always looks like that? A couple guys monitoring video feeds, and acting as a communications hub? You have no idea what a "busy" crisis response center for a blown out oil well looks like, none of us do. You're simply seizing on the fact that they've photoshopped a picture for aesthetic purposes (primarily to eliminate some glare) as proof that they don't care and are doing a half-assed job. Your chain of logic sucks, and simply betrays that you have an axe to grind here.
I'd much rather that BP expend their efforts on cleanup & completing the relief wells than have a bunch of people burning lean tissue over whether or not a photo is properly staged to set the right tone for their PR department.
Pick a country. Any country that you consider the government to "not be in the pocket of corporate interests." Explain why they do or do not innovate more than the US. I'm interested to see what countries you consider friendlier to innovation and experimentation, because I don't really think there are a whole lot that consistently rank much higher than the US in most measures of innovation.
Are our laws and business conditions "optimal" for innovating? Probably not. We could make some changes that might encourage a higher degree of innovation and experimentation, and I think you can make a strong case that unlimited copyright & existing patent law need some overhauls as part of that optimization process.
But, to the point of the post I responded to - are we actively "penalizing innovation and experimentation more than anyone?" The answer there is an unequivocal "No." In fact, we are not anywhere near the bottom of the pile when it comes to restricting/penalizing/curtailing innovation and experimentation. The only reason that poster was modded "Insightful" was because it's a clever soundbite which fits nicely with the "Copyright bad, Patents bad, OSS and freedom good!" mindset of Slashdot. Moderators see snarky comments that echo that sentiment, and the immediate response is to mod it up.
It was an honest question. And your response is, "No, I don't read it myself - but I could if I wanted to, and some strangers on the internet said it was safe, so why not just believe them - somebody else would have caught the lie by now if they were lying!"
Yeah, because that photographer should be out there mopping up oil and controlling ROVs to place a new cap instead of, you know, taking photographs and photoshopping them to make them presentable.
And don't get me started on the guys working security in the BP office buildings - they've done NOTHING to help with this crisis response. They're not even drilling relief wells!
If Canon can't make the default date on a camera at least be greater than the production date, what other sophomoric failures are they making in their camera firmware?
Why would they? That's like asking computer manufacturers to set the epoch date to "whenever this baby rolled off the line." It's a meaningless arbitrary baseline date, one arbitrary date is generally as meaningful as another arbitrary date - which is to say, not very meaningful at all.
And if BP can't take a picture of their ops center that makes them look busy, but instead needs to photoshop images to achieve that, how busy are they?
Too busy to stage bullshit publicity photos to make you feel warm and fuzzy about their crisis response? Just a guess. The photoshopping didn't "add people to the crisis center," it eliminated some blank screens, at least one of which was showing some pretty significant glare. If they had released the original, no doubt somebody would be bitching about how "BP doesn't even care enough to do a good job taking a photo, imagine how piss-poor their response to this crisis must be!"
So you're saying that a clean, cheaper-than-fossil-fuel, renewable source of energy exists?
And you're saying that the only people with money enough to commercialize it are oil companies?
Let's assume those statements are true. Do you see the flaw in your argument big enough that you could drive an oil rig through it?
I'll help: Why aren't the oil companies developing & exploiting this technology today, then? They have the money; apparently they have the knowledge of the technology and the expertise required to commercialize it; If I'm the CEO of Shell, and I know that I have access to a cleaner, cheaper, renewable source of energy - one that will inevitably replace the limited fossil fuel supply that I'm exploiting today, then why wouldn't I commercialize it to be the first mover in that space, and make my company and myself even MORE ridiculously rich, as well as making every environmentalist on the planet want to give me head because I've started the move to the new "green" economy? Some of those treehugger chicks are cute.
Please explain why this isn't happening today, I'm really quite intrigued to hear your reasoning for why anybody who's charged with maximizing shareholder value would willfully ignore a way to do that that has literally NO downside.
FFS, how does "3 blank screens" equate to "we're not working hard on this"?
Maybe sending 3 additional ROVs to the site to populate those screens would actually HINDER their fucking efforts to respond - would you prefer they did that instead though, so they could have 3 additional video feeds to display, to make you feel better that a flatscreen monitor isn't being left blank?
This is so much a nonissue it's ridiculous. If the photo was photoshopped to remove images of somebody playing pingpong and another guy taking a hit from a bong, YES, this would be a scandal. The changes they made are aesthetic, and frankly, irrelevant, to whether or not they're "actually" working on the oil spill, versus "working hard to appear" that they're working on the oil spill.
Or how about all the vocalization they're doing, using the lingual and buccal portions of their anatomy, producing vibrations which are transmitted through a gaseous medium to the cochlear receptors of observers?
Good god, activities like that would be AWFUL! We can't have them waving around their little words when bigger legal-sounding words would do! Think of the dolphins!
Seriously, how hard is it to send a memo saying "the photographer will be here on such and such date, please shave, and look busy"?
So you're okay with them staging the photo before it's taken so that they appear busier than they actually are, but photoshopping after the fact to eliminate some blank computer screens showing some glare is right out?
Are we saying it's reasonable (and even preferable) to ask everybody to interrupt what they're *actually* doing to contain the oil spill in order to get them all grouped around a computer screen pointing and frowning thoughtfully, after spending an hour or two in makeup and wardrobe to make sure they look great for the PR photo? I just want to be clear on the level of lying you're comfortable with.
How about the people who hack docsis cablemodems? Oh, that's right, the cable companies heavily harass them with legal trouble.
Examples? Are you talking about people hacking their Docsis modems to increase their connection speeds? So they're violating their terms of service, and then you're surprised when the cable company makes them stop?
What about the people who make the homebrew channel for the Wii? Oh, that's right-- Nintendo bricks their consoles for them.
Citation? I can find no information about Nintendo "bricking" Wiis because of Homebrew Channel being installed - I see references on wiibrew.com talking about how installing an update after installing homebrew *can* result in a brick, but that's a bit different from "Nintendo intentionally killing" the console, innit?
How about the people that hack on the PS3? Oh, Sony removed the OtherOS function, citing "piracy" concerns..
I see, so Sony = "The US" when it comes to penalizing "innovation" in the form of running Linux on your PS3.
Iphone jail-breakers?
Um. Who's being penalized for jailbreaking their iphone?
I think you get the idea. Next time, try to do more than just cherry pick, and actually look at the systemic problem, k?
Next time you want to discuss how the US is penalizing innovation, try discussing how the US is penalizing innovation, not how some companies have tried to limit the hacker-friendliness of a few specific pieces of hardware, and then calling the inability to install Linux on your PS3 "stifling innovation."
My guess: because in "cutting to the chase," you sensationalized the issue with references to "Big Brother," and your initial post basically reads like a rant.
But he's not questioning "the methods by which the statistics are gathered," he's simply saying "They lied, the statistics are invalid, and this problem is way worse than they're painting it to be." Nowhere does he "question" the statistics, and the methods. He simply asserts that things must not be the way Apple and ATT say because HE FEELS that it's "safe to assume" and "more likely" that those statistics are underreporting the problem by vast amounts. He offered no evidence to substantiate his feelings, he offered no additional data, just some speculation.
He points out the statistics don't mean what you think they mean and you retort that he has no proof otherwise?
No, he asserts blindly that the statistics are invalid, and offers nothing but speculation as to how they are invalid. If he had said, "It's likely that those statistics underreport the severity," I could agree with that, and then we'd be discussing the scale of the underreporting, perhaps by finding additional data to illustrate.
Instead, he says that the statistics are bald-faced lies, speculates as to how they MUST be lies, and then says that - based on that speculation - the problem is obviously far far worse than anybody realizes, and that Apple knowingly shipped a new product with a known and significant engineering defect which is a close spiritual successor to the Ford Pinto.
If he wanted to debate the validity of the statistics, perhaps he should have offered actual data to support his claims, rather than speculation, hmm?
Yes, he did say "safe to assume". And "more likely" was in the context of "Only a small fraction of people would ever call Apple support about this - they'd be more likely to blame ATT, or to accept that the iphone just has poor reception."
Why is it sufficient for him to make wildly speculative assertions with no data to back them up (how does he know that users are "more likely" to do this, exactly? How much "more likely" are they to do this if they do?), but it's not sufficient for Apple and ATT to provide real world usage data that illustrates the actual scope of the issue?
Is it just because his speculation and supposition happen to agree with your biases, so you think it's "safe to assume" that he must be right, and insightful? Contradicting the data Apple & ATT shared in their press conference with "Nuh uh, they're fucking liars, and this problem is WAAAY worse than they're letting on because I feel like it must be," doesn't make a defensible point, it just makes you (and him) look like a bunch of jack-offs.
I feel plenty comfortable anywhere on slashdot. Does my opinion bother you that much that you feel the need to troll?
You're good at it, though. Tell your boss we said you deserve a raise.
Brother, if I were a shill in the employ of Apple, I'd be driving a much nicer car and living in a way better neighborhood.
Address the argument directly, or fuck off. It's your choice which course you want to pursue, but if you have a real point to make, I'd rather hear that.
I'm sorry, apparently you weren't able to read Spisska's actual post while you were fellating him.
tl;dr: There was no "safe assuming", no "more likely's", nor did Spisska claim to be authoritative.
Spisska wrote: "No way to verify the figure... " "it's safe to assume that... " "Only a small fraction of people would ever call Apple support about this." "They'd be more likely to blame ATT, or to accept that the iphone just has poor reception."
He is attempting to speak authoritatively on the subject by waving his hands around and making wildly speculative assertions with no data to back them up. In fact, he used the EXACT WORDS "safe to assume" and "more likely" in his attempt to sound authoritative. Making up scenarios that are likely to map well to your own biases simply exposes your own biases, it's not a way to "provide independent review."
TL;DR - Spisska could have benefited from your advice more than I could have:
If you want to try and refute something someone has siad, try and actually addressing what they said rather than make baseless assertions.
That's not the real question. There are many other factors involved, like how often people get sick vs. how frequently Macs need service.
Actually, in the context of the discussion so far, that *is* the real question. The person I was responding to said, "There are 250 million people who need to see doctors, and only 9 million mac users, therefore it's not reasonable to ask me to make an appointment like I would expect to with a doctor" - as if the absolute number of people who would need a particular service is the only determining factor, as opposed to the number of people demanding service versus the number of people providing the service.
My response is that there is a much higher number of users per Mac service specialists when compared to patients versus doctors - thus if it's "reasonable" to make an appointment to see a doctor, it's just as "reasonable" to make an appointment to have your computer serviced.
For people, there are emergency rooms for "on-demand" service, and even in an emergency room, you will be triaged and forced to wait for a long time if you're showing up for a sniffle when they've got patients from a high-speed multi-vehicle accident to work on.
If something has to wait, it better be inanimate objects.
And what if their system - make an appointment for diagnostic & drop-off - minimizes waiting for everybody concerned? I suspect you've never actually used the system in question, and so you're just chiming in because you like to complain about Apple "not caring" about its customers who are "locked in".
Apple just doesn't feel the need to care about its customers - they are locked in with nowhere else to go.
I like how you handily omit the existence of third party repair services, and the fact that Apple's *computers* are made up of commodity parts that you could replace yourself if you're in that much of a rush, or want to save even more money.
Grind your axe elsewhere, you clearly have never used the "Genius Bar" service, and have no idea how it works.
Slashdot Mirror
Smart shopping. Of course, if he was really smart, he'd go forward in time and pick up an iPhone 6 from just before the iPhone 7 comes out, bring it back in time to a couple years ago, and then he can post here on Slashdot that "my phone has had that functionality for 10 years, jeez, why do you fanbois get so excited over this crap?" when the iPhone 6 is released in a few years!
Just *think* of the possibilities!
(it was a joke.)
I get the whole "I can look at the source code" argument, I just think it's a weak argument for open source in general, because most people don't know what they're looking at, and wouldn't know where to even begin.
Point is, something being "open source" doesn't guarantee safety or security, and without verifying the safety yourself, you really are left trusting to the benevolence of strangers, whether or not it's open source. You chimed in to say that you install a custom ROM on your phone as an example of how your phone does much more to protect your privacy... so I thought the natural followup to that would be to ask if you've actually read the source code yourself, or if you just extend that trust to someone else.
Right, by buying Apple products you mean? :)
Two points.
a) They didn't photoshop in "more people standing around pointing at shit" in the photo under discussion. You're either talking about a completely different photo I'm unaware of, or you haven't bothered to look at the photo being discussed. Either way, that clause of your argument is irrelevant.
b) They photoshopped "more stuff" on the screens by cutting & pasting the image from existing screens. Is this evidence of an inane fear of showing a "blank computer screen in a crisis center!"? Sure. Is this evidence of a diabolical master plan? Not unless you've got your tinfoil hat firmly in place and REALLY stretch for it.
So, here's how this issue could have played out:
1) BP releases unedited photo of crisis center. You immediately begin shouting about how "three unused screens, they must not be working that hard if they don't even have enough data to fill them," and how if they were REALLY working hard, there'd be more PhDs frowning thoughtfully over the blank screens in the original.
2) BP releases this edited photo of their crisis center. You immediately being shouting about how "photoshopping the screen to eliminate a huge white glare in the middle of the photo" is evidence of a diabolical master plan to make us think they're doing something when in reality they're just sitting there waiting for... well, for what, exactly? Every day this leak goes on, BP is hemorrhaging money and goodwill. Nobody's going to kill the well for them. Do you think that they're just sitting there hoping people will forget that the well is leaking, so they can pack up and go home?
Either way, you will interpret the information to suit your preordained conclusion, which is that BP is double-plus-ungood-evil-bad-wicked-naughty, and that everything they do is an attempt to avoid responsibility and avoid having to pay for or fix the mess they've made. Furthermore, since you apparently don't know fuck-all about how to stop a leaking oil well, or what is involved in doing so, all of your input here is just armchair quarterbacking about how you think an oil well capping operation "should" look, based on your vast experience of having once watched Armageddon, Deep Impact, and 2012 in all their big-screen glory.
The question is, how is "6 random dudes on the internet who've looked at the source code say it's okay" any different from "6 random dudes who work for some company say the source code is okay."
"Being on the internet" doesn't magically make the people who can and do review the source code smarter or more capable of finding bugs. You're taking someone's word for it that it's safe just as much as if the project wasn't open source, so what's the functional difference?
"I CAN look at the source code" is meaningless if you don't have the expertise or requisite interest TO look at the source code - without verification, it's still an exercise in trusting to the benevolence of strangers.
Pray tell, how does a camera programatically determine that the time entered by the photographer is correct?
Right, because the thousands of people involved in the crisis response should all just be doing "something" regardless of whether or not that actually helps kill the leak & clean up the oil. Maybe next we'll ask them to do jumping jacks whenever they stop to think about something, just so they LOOK really active. Maybe we can make the IT guys start drilling their own relief well too. And the secretaries.
I suspect your expectations of what a "crisis response" should look like comes directly from watching too many Hollywood disaster movies.
Why would you? The time & date the photo was taken is useful information - the camera itself doesn't know "what day it is" unless you tell it. So why omit potentially useful data because the photographer didn't set the camera's clock, and the camera has no way of determining that itself?
What if the place always looks like that? A couple guys monitoring video feeds, and acting as a communications hub? You have no idea what a "busy" crisis response center for a blown out oil well looks like, none of us do. You're simply seizing on the fact that they've photoshopped a picture for aesthetic purposes (primarily to eliminate some glare) as proof that they don't care and are doing a half-assed job. Your chain of logic sucks, and simply betrays that you have an axe to grind here.
I'd much rather that BP expend their efforts on cleanup & completing the relief wells than have a bunch of people burning lean tissue over whether or not a photo is properly staged to set the right tone for their PR department.
Pick a country. Any country that you consider the government to "not be in the pocket of corporate interests." Explain why they do or do not innovate more than the US. I'm interested to see what countries you consider friendlier to innovation and experimentation, because I don't really think there are a whole lot that consistently rank much higher than the US in most measures of innovation.
Are our laws and business conditions "optimal" for innovating? Probably not. We could make some changes that might encourage a higher degree of innovation and experimentation, and I think you can make a strong case that unlimited copyright & existing patent law need some overhauls as part of that optimization process.
But, to the point of the post I responded to - are we actively "penalizing innovation and experimentation more than anyone?" The answer there is an unequivocal "No." In fact, we are not anywhere near the bottom of the pile when it comes to restricting/penalizing/curtailing innovation and experimentation. The only reason that poster was modded "Insightful" was because it's a clever soundbite which fits nicely with the "Copyright bad, Patents bad, OSS and freedom good!" mindset of Slashdot. Moderators see snarky comments that echo that sentiment, and the immediate response is to mod it up.
It was an honest question. And your response is, "No, I don't read it myself - but I could if I wanted to, and some strangers on the internet said it was safe, so why not just believe them - somebody else would have caught the lie by now if they were lying!"
Yeah, because that photographer should be out there mopping up oil and controlling ROVs to place a new cap instead of, you know, taking photographs and photoshopping them to make them presentable.
And don't get me started on the guys working security in the BP office buildings - they've done NOTHING to help with this crisis response. They're not even drilling relief wells!
Why would they? That's like asking computer manufacturers to set the epoch date to "whenever this baby rolled off the line." It's a meaningless arbitrary baseline date, one arbitrary date is generally as meaningful as another arbitrary date - which is to say, not very meaningful at all.
Too busy to stage bullshit publicity photos to make you feel warm and fuzzy about their crisis response? Just a guess. The photoshopping didn't "add people to the crisis center," it eliminated some blank screens, at least one of which was showing some pretty significant glare. If they had released the original, no doubt somebody would be bitching about how "BP doesn't even care enough to do a good job taking a photo, imagine how piss-poor their response to this crisis must be!"
Get a grip man.
So you're saying that a clean, cheaper-than-fossil-fuel, renewable source of energy exists?
And you're saying that the only people with money enough to commercialize it are oil companies?
Let's assume those statements are true. Do you see the flaw in your argument big enough that you could drive an oil rig through it?
I'll help: Why aren't the oil companies developing & exploiting this technology today, then? They have the money; apparently they have the knowledge of the technology and the expertise required to commercialize it; If I'm the CEO of Shell, and I know that I have access to a cleaner, cheaper, renewable source of energy - one that will inevitably replace the limited fossil fuel supply that I'm exploiting today, then why wouldn't I commercialize it to be the first mover in that space, and make my company and myself even MORE ridiculously rich, as well as making every environmentalist on the planet want to give me head because I've started the move to the new "green" economy? Some of those treehugger chicks are cute.
Please explain why this isn't happening today, I'm really quite intrigued to hear your reasoning for why anybody who's charged with maximizing shareholder value would willfully ignore a way to do that that has literally NO downside.
FFS, how does "3 blank screens" equate to "we're not working hard on this"?
Maybe sending 3 additional ROVs to the site to populate those screens would actually HINDER their fucking efforts to respond - would you prefer they did that instead though, so they could have 3 additional video feeds to display, to make you feel better that a flatscreen monitor isn't being left blank?
This is so much a nonissue it's ridiculous. If the photo was photoshopped to remove images of somebody playing pingpong and another guy taking a hit from a bong, YES, this would be a scandal. The changes they made are aesthetic, and frankly, irrelevant, to whether or not they're "actually" working on the oil spill, versus "working hard to appear" that they're working on the oil spill.
Or how about all the vocalization they're doing, using the lingual and buccal portions of their anatomy, producing vibrations which are transmitted through a gaseous medium to the cochlear receptors of observers?
Good god, activities like that would be AWFUL! We can't have them waving around their little words when bigger legal-sounding words would do! Think of the dolphins!
So you're okay with them staging the photo before it's taken so that they appear busier than they actually are, but photoshopping after the fact to eliminate some blank computer screens showing some glare is right out?
Are we saying it's reasonable (and even preferable) to ask everybody to interrupt what they're *actually* doing to contain the oil spill in order to get them all grouped around a computer screen pointing and frowning thoughtfully, after spending an hour or two in makeup and wardrobe to make sure they look great for the PR photo? I just want to be clear on the level of lying you're comfortable with.
Be honest, do you actually review the source code of the entire system you're installing when you install your custom ROM?
Slashdot's not exclusive enough - there's some real dummies here.
Examples? Are you talking about people hacking their Docsis modems to increase their connection speeds? So they're violating their terms of service, and then you're surprised when the cable company makes them stop?
Citation? I can find no information about Nintendo "bricking" Wiis because of Homebrew Channel being installed - I see references on wiibrew.com talking about how installing an update after installing homebrew *can* result in a brick, but that's a bit different from "Nintendo intentionally killing" the console, innit?
I see, so Sony = "The US" when it comes to penalizing "innovation" in the form of running Linux on your PS3.
Um. Who's being penalized for jailbreaking their iphone?
Next time you want to discuss how the US is penalizing innovation, try discussing how the US is penalizing innovation, not how some companies have tried to limit the hacker-friendliness of a few specific pieces of hardware, and then calling the inability to install Linux on your PS3 "stifling innovation."
Really?! For a country that penalizes this stuff more than anybody else, we sure do whole lot of it!
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_res_and_dev_exp_of_gdp-economy-research-development-expenditure-gdp
http://ideas.repec.org/a/eaa/eerese/v5y2005i5_9.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation#Measures
Perhaps next time you should engage your brain before spouting off Slashdot banalities designed to curry you favor with the mods!
My guess: because in "cutting to the chase," you sensationalized the issue with references to "Big Brother," and your initial post basically reads like a rant.
Thus, flamebait.
But he's not questioning "the methods by which the statistics are gathered," he's simply saying "They lied, the statistics are invalid, and this problem is way worse than they're painting it to be." Nowhere does he "question" the statistics, and the methods. He simply asserts that things must not be the way Apple and ATT say because HE FEELS that it's "safe to assume" and "more likely" that those statistics are underreporting the problem by vast amounts. He offered no evidence to substantiate his feelings, he offered no additional data, just some speculation.
No, he asserts blindly that the statistics are invalid, and offers nothing but speculation as to how they are invalid. If he had said, "It's likely that those statistics underreport the severity," I could agree with that, and then we'd be discussing the scale of the underreporting, perhaps by finding additional data to illustrate.
Instead, he says that the statistics are bald-faced lies, speculates as to how they MUST be lies, and then says that - based on that speculation - the problem is obviously far far worse than anybody realizes, and that Apple knowingly shipped a new product with a known and significant engineering defect which is a close spiritual successor to the Ford Pinto.
If he wanted to debate the validity of the statistics, perhaps he should have offered actual data to support his claims, rather than speculation, hmm?
Yes, he did say "safe to assume". And "more likely" was in the context of "Only a small fraction of people would ever call Apple support about this - they'd be more likely to blame ATT, or to accept that the iphone just has poor reception."
Why is it sufficient for him to make wildly speculative assertions with no data to back them up (how does he know that users are "more likely" to do this, exactly? How much "more likely" are they to do this if they do?), but it's not sufficient for Apple and ATT to provide real world usage data that illustrates the actual scope of the issue?
Is it just because his speculation and supposition happen to agree with your biases, so you think it's "safe to assume" that he must be right, and insightful? Contradicting the data Apple & ATT shared in their press conference with "Nuh uh, they're fucking liars, and this problem is WAAAY worse than they're letting on because I feel like it must be," doesn't make a defensible point, it just makes you (and him) look like a bunch of jack-offs.
I feel plenty comfortable anywhere on slashdot. Does my opinion bother you that much that you feel the need to troll?
Brother, if I were a shill in the employ of Apple, I'd be driving a much nicer car and living in a way better neighborhood.
Address the argument directly, or fuck off. It's your choice which course you want to pursue, but if you have a real point to make, I'd rather hear that.
I'm sorry, apparently you weren't able to read Spisska's actual post while you were fellating him.
Spisska wrote:
"No way to verify the figure... "
"it's safe to assume that... "
"Only a small fraction of people would ever call Apple support about this."
"They'd be more likely to blame ATT, or to accept that the iphone just has poor reception."
He is attempting to speak authoritatively on the subject by waving his hands around and making wildly speculative assertions with no data to back them up. In fact, he used the EXACT WORDS "safe to assume" and "more likely" in his attempt to sound authoritative. Making up scenarios that are likely to map well to your own biases simply exposes your own biases, it's not a way to "provide independent review."
TL;DR - Spisska could have benefited from your advice more than I could have:
Actually, in the context of the discussion so far, that *is* the real question. The person I was responding to said, "There are 250 million people who need to see doctors, and only 9 million mac users, therefore it's not reasonable to ask me to make an appointment like I would expect to with a doctor" - as if the absolute number of people who would need a particular service is the only determining factor, as opposed to the number of people demanding service versus the number of people providing the service.
My response is that there is a much higher number of users per Mac service specialists when compared to patients versus doctors - thus if it's "reasonable" to make an appointment to see a doctor, it's just as "reasonable" to make an appointment to have your computer serviced.
For people, there are emergency rooms for "on-demand" service, and even in an emergency room, you will be triaged and forced to wait for a long time if you're showing up for a sniffle when they've got patients from a high-speed multi-vehicle accident to work on.
And what if their system - make an appointment for diagnostic & drop-off - minimizes waiting for everybody concerned? I suspect you've never actually used the system in question, and so you're just chiming in because you like to complain about Apple "not caring" about its customers who are "locked in".
I like how you handily omit the existence of third party repair services, and the fact that Apple's *computers* are made up of commodity parts that you could replace yourself if you're in that much of a rush, or want to save even more money.
Grind your axe elsewhere, you clearly have never used the "Genius Bar" service, and have no idea how it works.