No, but we can say something about what percentage of star systems have gas giants that have migrated inwards (number of star systems examined divided by number of star systems with easy-to-detect inner system gas giants). If there are far more close-in giants than our current theories allow, percentage-wise, then we know that our current theories are incorrect.
Again, finding inner gas giants is easier than finding outer gas giants; we are selecting planets with inner gas giants most frequently because those are the easiest to see. Jupiter takes 12 years to orbit the sun... Saturn takes 29.
The first confirmed discovery of an extra solar planet was in 1995. So jupiter has gone around the sun once, Saturn hasn't even quite gotten halfway around the sun. Given that our ability to detect extrasolar planets is based on catching them either eclipse their star, or based on the doppler wobble, it should be clear that we are going to find planets that complete a cycle every few days/months rather than every 10s of years.
There are ~1400 star systems containing ~2000 within 50 ly of the sun. Given that we have found ~270 extra solar planets, and we have a number cases of multiple planets orbiting a single star. This means we still don't have data for around 90% of the local stars. How many of them have large gas giants in decade+ orbits that we haven't detected yet (earth like solar systems)? Unless I'm missing something it seems clear that reading too much into the planets we've found so far is a bad idea.
As an aside there is also the potential for a gas giant in the habitable planet zone having rocky moons.
Okay, the key in you strategy is that you try different women...
That's absurd. After being rejected by 10 different women in a row, it would be entirely rational to conclude that the "key to my strategy" that of just trying different women isn't working. Do I just keep going, or change the strategy?
To get back to the origina analogy, when you peg doesnt fit the whole, try another hole
And after trying 10 holes do you just keep looking for more holes? At what point do you concede that continuing to look for holes is sticking to a strategy that hasn't exactly proven to work?
That's giving up hope. Learning from your mistakes would be getting turned down by a woman, analyzing what might have led to that outcome, and trying to fix it.
That's assuming that 'negative feedback' comes from a mistake. A lot of things require persistence, doing the same thing until it works.
Meeting women, ironically, is one of those things.
1) Just be yourself. 2) That didn't work. 3) Repeat with another woman until it works.
Anything else is going to fail even more catastrophically.
Some things benefit from stepping back analyzing the approach for error and taking a new approach. Other things benefit from just continuing to hammer away at it, even if it appears not to be working. Wouldn't surprise me if, from and evolutionary point of view... a balance of 70/30 within a population is the most efficient. Most people rethink... a few hammer away... population as a whole does better.
If comparison shopping is a threat to your business model, perhaps you have a flawed business model?
Maybe if the aggregators were just listing the fares from the RyanAir website, and directing customers there when they selected a flight or airline them you'd have a viable argument.
But the aggregators were scraping teh RyanAir website, adding in a margin for THEMSELVES, and processing the transaction.
In other words, they were ripping Ryanair customers off. These Aggregator customers would have been better off just booking through the RyanAir website directly.
Additionally, this move wouldn't affect any aggregator that redirected customers to book through the Ryanair website, because the customer bookings would still go directly through the ryanair website. So if all you were doing was providing convenient (adsupported) flight rate comparisons this move didn't actually affect you. It *only* affected aggregators that actually processed the bookings (and these guys invariably added some margin for themselves.)
I get what you are saying and agree, if blocking comparison shopping is your business model, then something isn't going to go well... but its hard to be critical of Ryanair here. I'm much more inclined to call these aggregator sites that this affected as the badguys here. They were effectively misrepresenting what they were actually offering.
The dark side is that the card networks are pushing this so that they can move fraud liability from the merchants to the consumers.
You are confused. The card networks have ALREADY pushed all the fraud liability from themselves to the merchants, and they are quite content with this arrangement. They don't really want the consumers to be liable, because then consumers will stop using their card. Far better to have the merchants liable, because they can't afford not to accept the cards.
Besides, at the end of the day, the ultimate cost of fraud ends up on the consumer anyway, as merchants set prices to cover the cost of chargebacks, fraud, etc.
So the consumer always pays, the only question is exactly how the accounting is done.
Boy, that's sure not my recollection. I remember gamers coming over fast, way ahead of both corporations and casual users.
Might depend on what you played. My recollection is that Win98 hung on for ages after XP arrived, due to compatibility and performance issues.
Remember, Win98 used a tiny fraction of the resources that Windows XP required. XP required VASTLY more RAM and more CPU than 98 to reach even close to the same level of performance. (Sounds familiar to XP - Vista actually.)
So gamers hung onto 98 for quite a while, due to the increased performance, and shunned XP's cpu and ram bloat. Hell, by the time XP launched, there were still popular titles from big publishers (Ubisoft's Rainbow Six series, expansions, etc, for example) that still didn't even officially support Win2000 by 2002 (although with some coaxing and luck could usually be made to work.)
And hey you only had to double or even quadruple or even more the amount of ram in your PC and upgrade CPU's.
XP was such a win in gaming: more stable, better task switching, great backwards compat.
A year plus after it was launched maybe.
Sure there were driver problems, but not so bad, nor for so long. I don't suppose there's any data to really show how it went, prove either of us right.
Of course the driver problems weren't so bad, nor for so long. Windows XP was just Windows 2000 with a bit of a facelift. And in particular, for nearly everything, it used exactly the same drivers as 2k. So by the time XP launched, a huge chunk of the drivers had been released for 2+ years, if not longer longer because 2000 wasn't that much of a deviation from NT4.
Serious question: Has anyone here ever seen a TV die? I mean, not from being dropped during a move, but actually just stopping to work. I might be mistaken, but I have the impression these things just don't break.
They actually die a variety of slow deaths. They get blurry, they lose color fidelity (tint), they get dark, or lose contrast (look washed out), they can suffer 'burn in', make high pitched buzzing noises...
A lot of this stuff is repairable... but its not usually worth repairing.
your old tv can't beneft from progressive scan unfortunately, it was a feature that was built in only for HDTVs, and the reason was because dvd player software on computers had it.
Are you sure? I am under the impression that almost any tv that supports 'component inputs' can use and benefit from progressive scan on that connection. There are a LOT of older TVs that aren't "HD" that do accept component.
So going from 480i to 480p had merit but going from 480p to 1080p does not?
If you are comparing original 480i DVD players to newer progressive scan and even upscaling DVD players then yes. Because when your original 480i dvd player wears out a new progressive scan one can be had for under $100, and there is no real point in buying one that isn't progressive scan, the difference to PQ isn't huge, but its cheap and even your old TV can probably benefit.
With bluray/1080p you not only have to replace your TV (and get one that's at least 46", plus a relatively expensive bluray player) to benefit from 1080p, so sure 1080p will have merit when your TV dies and you need to replace it, and bluray players cost $100.
Trouble is, by the time that happens, will bluray still even be relevant?
Plus, DVDs are pevasive now, and can be shared with friends, used in many cars, portable dvd players, laptops, the tv at the beach. A bluray disc will only work at home on your home theatre. Its going to be a while (if it ever happens) that you'll have bluray support everywhere else. And thanks to drm you can't even downsample them down to DVD for your other players.
In other words, both systems fail at authentication, which is, in the end, what passports are trying to provide, and many people think encryption provides.
with respect to encyprtion, that is because *asymmetric* encryption (ie public key encryption or just digital signatures) DOES have applications in verifying authenticity.
You call that price gouging, I call that supply and demand.
No. I called it both.
Your assertion that profit is evil
I never asserted that. And I don't think that at all. I said a business could be sustained without profit, because its the truth. However, the entire purpose of running a business is to create profits. That is why we go into business, and there is nothing evil about it.
If people are willing to pay a certain price for an object...
Your 'if' fails. They aren't willing. They have no choice. If they could stop buying oil they would.... why should I sell that object for less?
In general: because your customers will despise you, and switch to an alternative product / vendor the first opportunity they can. This is why, for example, Nintendo hasn't raised their prices on the wii or wii fit despite levels of demand causing systemic shortages. They make a healthy profit on each unit, and their customers feel its good value.
If oil could be done without entirely, or substituted, a lot of people would stop consuming it. But they can't. They are a captive market. So when the price rises dramatically, when there is no correlating rise in the price of supply they naturally, and rightfully, resent the oil companies. The oil companies were making very healthy profits at 80/barrel. At 120/barrel its almost obscene.
Should the oil companies have kept the price lower? No. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying they easily could have, and remained very profitable.
However if they'd done that we'd be facing oil shortages instead of high prices. And then someone else would have stepped in and started re-selling the oil they bought at those lower prices back into the market at higher prices. (Just as 'ebayers' did to the Wii although here it would be on a much bigger scale.)
And average consumers would then be (rightfully) pissed off at the resellers instead of the oil companies. (Just as they were with the Wii, in fact.)
So one way or another without outright price-control legislation, the prices would have gone up. The only question is who will profit.
Do I think its wrong for the public to propose a tax on those windfall profits to redistribute some of the wealth back to the public?
Well... let me put it this way... I think its EQUALLY right or wrong as bailing out mega-corps when they are on the verge of collapse, and if we the people are going to ultimately bear the cost when a mega-corp fails, then we the people should ultimately benefit when a mega-corp has record profits too.
Since we've already gone down the road of bailing out companies that have screwed up royally, I don't see why we shouldn't recover some of those costs by taxing companies that have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
What rational argument is there for: 'socialize the losses, privatize the profits'?
Your entire worldview confuses me.
You clearly don't know what my world view actually is. Its clearly not what you think.
So if you're working for Company 'A' and in your off time at home you have a personal software project that you end up selling to Company 'B,' Company 'A' should be able to discipline you? I think not.
As a matter of fact this is quite common. Particularly if they can argue that you developed the idea in the course of your employment. If you did any of the actual development on company time, or property, you have even less of a leg to stand on.
So yes, if you are an engineer for toyota, and 'in your off time at home, you develop a new fuel injection design', you can bet your ass Toyota will claim ownership of it -- after all, they'll assert the brainchild of the invention occured as a result of what you were exposed to at work.
Its a well known maxim, that if you have a patentable idea in your personal time, that you should quit the company, and wait 6 months to a year before publishing precisely to ensure they don't come back at you to claim ownership. Either that, or get your boss to sign off that its yours before you start working on it. (assuming you feel you can trust them not to steal it from you when you disclose the idea to them... but if that's your fear... see above: quit and wait.)
If this was coded on official paid time, then I would whole agree with you, but there is no way to actually know.
Did the military provide the laptop he used?
Even if they didn't, if the idea he developed is something that was within the 'scope' of his job, they'd still have a good shot at asserting they owned the project. It may not be 'right', but the law has ruled multiple times in cases like this, siding with the employer.
Profits are the amount of money earned beyond the cost of producing the saleable goods but that doesn't mean there's no use/need for that money.
There are plenty of uses for that money. I never said otherwise.
In order for the business to grow to meet future demands for its product those profits have to be reinvested in the company.
By definition, growth, is over and above "sustain". The operative word in this discussion is sustain. You do need profit to grow, you do not need profit to "sustain".
Some of the profits have to be put away for times when the income of the company drops or for emergencies.
1) You can have cash reserves without having profit.
2) You are describing a situation where the business is unprofitable, relying on past profits to see it through. All that demonstrates is that a formerly profitable business is potentially (generally) more resilient to being temporarily unprofitable. And that's true... but really, quite, irrelevant. Being (formerly) profitable is one way of building up cash reserves, but its not the only way.
Additionally, consuming past profits to sustain an unprofitable business is really just profit averaging over multiple years. If you are profitable for 5 years and then take a big loss that eats up all those profits, then you really just ran a profit neutral business.
You obviously have never run a business and had to try to plan for every eventuality and build that into the price of your goods.
I do run a business and I do build the cost of building/replenishing "insulatory cash reserves" into my product pricing.
It's just not possible. You account for what you can measure and quantify, build as much of that into the cost as you can and still be competitive and try to make some kind of profit to insulate you against the things you can't plan for and prepare you for future growth.
You build in what you know, you estimate what you don't know. Sure you can still be hit for even more than that. But that's a never-ending cycle... there is always the possibility you'll be hit with some unexpected extraordinary cost that will exceed everything you have planned for, and anything you can afford to pay. It doesn't matter how profitable you are. That's just life.
for and prepare you for future growth
growth != sustain. You need profit to grow a business. You do not need it to sustain a business.
The oil companies are responsible for all kinds of horrible things including predatory business practices, sitting on patents, etc... etc... But price gouging isn't one of them. The high cost of gas in the US is being caused by inadequate refinery capacity, a weakened dollar, and growing demand for petroleum from developing nations.
What exactly do you think "price gouging" is?
When demand goes up, and supply can't be added fast enough to meet the demand, what happens? The price goes up. The cost of supply on the other hand doesn't. And profits go up as a result. Even if we were to agree the price has gone exactly where it 'should' be based on the effect of increased demand and the inability (or alleged unwillingness) to increase supply to match, there is no avoiding the fact that the prices have gone up signficantly while costs haven't.
Why shouldn't 'the public' view that us 'unfair'?
If I charge $5 for water bottles that I paid $1 for, and I bring 10,000 of them to a concert, where I expect to sell out just before the end... but then on arrival find out a lot more people are coming than I expected and its hotter than I expected. So what do I do? I can't get more, the concert is in some remote area and there is no time. So I raise my prices to $20 because I know I'll still sell out before the end. That's just supply and demand at work, right?
Yet I still think an awful lot of concert goers are going to accuse me of price gouging. I wouldn't blame them. There is, after all, no reason I couldn't have stuck to selling them at $5/bottle. I still would have made a healthy profit.
Not exactly a government by the people for the people.
It sounds fine to me. "The people" are no less powerful or arbitrary than a monarch. The only difference is that 'we the people' (or our representatives) decide when we will allow ourselves to be sued rather than 'the king'.
Remember, when you sue the government, on some level your really just suing the people. Granted, there are are enough layers that this is largely theoretical, and granted the person deciding 'we the people don't feel like being sued today' is more likely acting in his own interest rather than actually representing 'the people'... but that's not the point.
Even if the democratic process were functioning perfectly, if someone tried to sue the 'government', the people could decide whether or not they agreed to be sued.
And even if you think that is "wrong" and shouldn't be allowed, consider this: in a perfect democracy if someone tried to sue the government, and the majority of the people disagreed with being sued, they could simply pass legislation allowing them to do whatever was done.
The problem is not the actual computers but the records that are on them, if someone (like a business) owned these computers (like an internet cafe) then they can do as they wish with them, however these computers were used with the understanding that they had some privacy. In effect the librarian was deciding what to do with the data of all the people who used those computers, not just the computers.
If you used a library computer with the expectation that any 'records' you left on it was private, then you are a fool. I would EXPECT a library computer to be monitored.
No, I'd blame both parties. The police shouldn't have asked for that much without a warrant and the librarian shouldn't have consented
Its the police's job to extract as much cooperation from the public as they can to solve a crime. Its our job, to know that this is EXACTLY what we pay them to do. It our job to KNOW, that just because they've asked for something that we don't have to give it to them. We are paying them to ask for more than they are entitled.
they are the ones responsible for upholding the law. My job as a citizen is to contribute to society by paying taxes that pay for these officers. So if I need to know my rights because I have to fear the police taking advantage of me, there is something wrong.
As a citizen you should know your rights, and have at least a basic understanding of the law, regardless.
The police are *trained* to use every legal avenue to get what they are looking for. They are *trained* in the arts of manipulation, persuasion, interrogation, investigation. Then they are given extraordinary powers, and handguns. Those are their tools, what they need to get the job we've hired them to do done.
Its their job is to investigate crime and they will do that to the best of their ability. Their job is to 'take advantage' of any cooperation they can extract from the public.
Remember: "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney..."
If you don't want to be 'taken advantage of': memorize them, exercise them. Its not hard. Those are the rules they are playing by, if you don't want to be taken advantage of you have to play by them too.
I think this is becoming less true over time - local machines are becoming more cost effective. For $259, I can get a Dell 350N dual-core processor. The freaking warranty use to cost more than that. More and more of the total cost is in the I/O systems - the Dell 350N is advertised with a $200 flat-panel monitor, and if you add a printer, it the actual computer becomes a minority of the cost.
Yes, already today, the computer is the cheap part, and the biggest issue driving upgrades is windows rot. People buy a new computer because it makes far more sense to buy a brand new $200 PC than to pay someone $150 to clean out the latest virus infection, and maybe upgrade the ram or hd.
The sales pitch for thin client isn't going to be about the cost of local hardware, its going to be 'somebody else' is going to take responsibility for cleaning up the messes, dealing with malware, backing up your documents all so you don't have to.
Sadly too many people will think handing over their data and paying a tidy sum is going to be a 'deal'.
Part of the issue is that the FBI has an enourmously imbalanced amount of power in any FBI - some_guy interaction.
Fair enough....Consequently, the FBI has a responsibility to use their power correctly, gently, and in an absurdly by the book way, in order to avoid even the appearance of abusing that authority. IMHO, that means always getting a warrant instead of going on extrajudicial fishing expeditions.
Whereas I drew a completely different conclusion. I would say, 'consequently individuals and businesses have a responsibility to learn what their rights are, how to stick up for them, and how to deal with the police / FBI'.
As anyone can tell you, criminals are much more adept at dealing with the police than the regular public. They know the law better, their rights better, and have much less groundless fear.
I agree that it should be up to the library staff whether the police question them or look at surveillance tapes or at computers in the absence of a warrant. But they didn't look at the computers in question. They removed them from the library, depriving the public of their use. It's an unreasonable deprivation of property unless there's a warrant issued for it.
And if you were the librarian in charge, that would have been your decision to make. You could have told the police just that. So, in this case, the librarian made a decision you don't agree with and you are blaming the police for asking, rather than the librarian for agreeing?
namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.
They weren't 'seized'. They asked for them, and they were given to them by the person responsible for them. He or she could have said no.
I don't want some librarian making the decision on whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority. Any smooth-talking agent can come in, reciting that it is for "terrorism / anthrax" or "the children / child porn" and the intimidated lady will just cave in. I know my friend's 60 year old mother who works as our local librarian would. She is neither lawyer nor judge, and should not function as such.
If the police want security tapes from a local business, for example, they have always just asked for them. The business isn't obligated to hand them over in that situation, but often does anyway, to be helpful. If they chose not to hand them over, then the police can seek a warrant.
This is not like the librarian handing over borrowing records for patrons. They -should- be obligated to protect patrons privacy and require a warrant for that. But if the police want to review the surveillance tapes, or look at a computer, or question the staff... then it is, and should be up to the library staff whether they feel like requiring the police to bring in a warrant before cooperating.
Which means you can disable signing for development purposes. You cannot sign something for your local machine only. So we can either disable the signing feature, or let microsoft decide for us what we trust. The better option is to disable it, which adds exactly 0 to our security... and this option doesn't even seem to be available for bootloaders, which is what this thread is about.
That is exactly the sort of misinformation that I'm talking about.
Read the following from microsoft:
"In general, software that is used in a development environment must comply with the same code signing requirements that apply to any software application on Windows Vista. For software that is widely distributed for internal use within a large enterprises, network managers should use code signing to ensure that the installation and execution of the software is free of unnecessary security warnings and dialog boxes. As with signing software for public release, signing software for deployment on a managed network uses a trusted code-signing service that performs all operations that are related to code-signing. The code-signing service can be configured to add the necessary certificates to the certificates stores on the computers that sign the software and the computers that run the software. The code-signing certificates can be obtained from a trusted third-party commercial certification authority (CA) or an internal CA that an organization manages. Additional information about code signing services in large enterprises is beyond the scope of this documentation. For more information about code signing within an enterprise, see the Introduction to Code Signing Web site and the Code Signing Best Practices whitepaper.
For an overview of a simplified signing process that uses test certificates to sign software for internal use in a driver development environment , see Managing the Software Signing Process. This process does not require the administrative overhead of setting up a code-signing server on a managed network. This simplified approach applies primarily to small development teams that manage their own development environment and their own signing process. This process is the same as the process used to sign drivers during development and test."
You should use either self-signed test certificates that are generated by the MakeCert tool or test certificates that are issued by an Enterprise certification authority (CA). By using MakeCert test certificates, signing and running development software can be supported on a small scale with only the tools that are provided in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK). More generally, by using Enterprise CA test certificates, the creation and issuance of test signing certificates can be centrally administered on a larger scale within a corporate network. Test certificates are valid only within a specific development environment and do not require the same type of controlled process as production signing of software that is released to the public or that is released for general use within an enterprise.
1) You -can- make self signed code that runs on a single machine, by adding your own root certificate. 2) You -can- make self signed code that runs within an enterprise network, signed with an *internally managed* certificate authority. (CA) 3) This code signing system applies to all code: applications, device drivers, and I can reasonably assume, bootloaders.
The only exception to the above, is the "Protected Media Path" (PMP), which has a code signing policy that does NOT accept self-signed code, that requires all software in the 'path' to be approved by the RIAA/MPAA/etc. So you absolutely can write an
Most ad-supported websites WANT you to go away if you're blocking ads. There are ALREADY websites attempting to lock people out by using javascript and other tactics to detect ad-blockers.
I think i said intelligent people knew better than that. I agree there is a significant chunk of braindead website owners out there that think preventing people from visiting is a good idea. In the long run most of those websites suffer for it. Some, like the NYT have a big enough 'brand' to get away with it. Most don't.
But if it worked like that, then your boss couldn't send you an email tagged with features like "do not forward" or "self destruct on a certain date". You can't enforce those types of "features"... you can't enforce those rules... if the owner has control of his own computer.
And the problem with that is what exactly? If my boss wants to enforce policy on my laptop, he's welcome to buy one, so that HE owns it, and then provide it to me configured the way he likes. That way I am just the user, and he the owner.
But if I'm the owner, then its absurd for him to be able to set policy on my hardware against my will. Although I might, if asked politely, respect the company policy of my own volition, even to the point of installing automatic enforcement to prevent accidents. Of course, I can remove that policy at any time - being the owner, but at least it won't happen by accident. If the compnay wants more control than that, they can provide me a laptop.
The economic damage would be incalculable, the social disruption would be incalculable. The call to finally secure the internet, to finally secure computers, would be unstoppable.
Go ahead, tell me *that* nightmare scenario is completely impossible.
I think cooler brighter heads would prevail before implementation. Idiots will cheer anything.
In any case what happens a few months later, when some hacker compromised the chain of trust, and released a virus that was 'trusted', a virus that was trusted by the machine more than the owners themselves were trusted by the machine. Oh, what fun that would be.
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No, but we can say something about what percentage of star systems have gas giants that have migrated inwards (number of star systems examined divided by number of star systems with easy-to-detect inner system gas giants). If there are far more close-in giants than our current theories allow, percentage-wise, then we know that our current theories are incorrect.
Again, finding inner gas giants is easier than finding outer gas giants; we are selecting planets with inner gas giants most frequently because those are the easiest to see. Jupiter takes 12 years to orbit the sun... Saturn takes 29.
The first confirmed discovery of an extra solar planet was in 1995. So jupiter has gone around the sun once, Saturn hasn't even quite gotten halfway around the sun. Given that our ability to detect extrasolar planets is based on catching them either eclipse their star, or based on the doppler wobble, it should be clear that we are going to find planets that complete a cycle every few days/months rather than every 10s of years.
There are ~1400 star systems containing ~2000 within 50 ly of the sun. Given that we have found ~270 extra solar planets, and we have a number cases of multiple planets orbiting a single star. This means we still don't have data for around 90% of the local stars. How many of them have large gas giants in decade+ orbits that we haven't detected yet (earth like solar systems)? Unless I'm missing something it seems clear that reading too much into the planets we've found so far is a bad idea.
As an aside there is also the potential for a gas giant in the habitable planet zone having rocky moons.
Okay, the key in you strategy is that you try different women...
That's absurd. After being rejected by 10 different women in a row, it would be entirely rational to conclude that the "key to my strategy" that of just trying different women isn't working. Do I just keep going, or change the strategy?
To get back to the origina analogy, when you peg doesnt fit the whole, try another hole
And after trying 10 holes do you just keep looking for more holes? At what point do you concede that continuing to look for holes is sticking to a strategy that hasn't exactly proven to work?
So you didnt disprove anything.
I disagree.
That's giving up hope. Learning from your mistakes would be getting turned down by a woman, analyzing what might have led to that outcome, and trying to fix it.
That's assuming that 'negative feedback' comes from a mistake. A lot of things require persistence, doing the same thing until it works.
Meeting women, ironically, is one of those things.
1) Just be yourself.
2) That didn't work.
3) Repeat with another woman until it works.
Anything else is going to fail even more catastrophically.
Some things benefit from stepping back analyzing the approach for error and taking a new approach. Other things benefit from just continuing to hammer away at it, even if it appears not to be working. Wouldn't surprise me if, from and evolutionary point of view... a balance of 70/30 within a population is the most efficient. Most people rethink... a few hammer away... population as a whole does better.
If comparison shopping is a threat to your business model, perhaps you have a flawed business model?
Maybe if the aggregators were just listing the fares from the RyanAir website, and directing customers there when they selected a flight or airline them you'd have a viable argument.
But the aggregators were scraping teh RyanAir website, adding in a margin for THEMSELVES, and processing the transaction.
In other words, they were ripping Ryanair customers off. These Aggregator customers would have been better off just booking through the RyanAir website directly.
Additionally, this move wouldn't affect any aggregator that redirected customers to book through the Ryanair website, because the customer bookings would still go directly through the ryanair website. So if all you were doing was providing convenient (adsupported) flight rate comparisons this move didn't actually affect you. It *only* affected aggregators that actually processed the bookings (and these guys invariably added some margin for themselves.)
I get what you are saying and agree, if blocking comparison shopping is your business model, then something isn't going to go well... but its hard to be critical of Ryanair here. I'm much more inclined to call these aggregator sites that this affected as the badguys here. They were effectively misrepresenting what they were actually offering.
The dark side is that the card networks are pushing this so that they can move fraud liability from the merchants to the consumers.
You are confused. The card networks have ALREADY pushed all the fraud liability from themselves to the merchants, and they are quite content with this arrangement. They don't really want the consumers to be liable, because then consumers will stop using their card. Far better to have the merchants liable, because they can't afford not to accept the cards.
Besides, at the end of the day, the ultimate cost of fraud ends up on the consumer anyway, as merchants set prices to cover the cost of chargebacks, fraud, etc.
So the consumer always pays, the only question is exactly how the accounting is done.
$8,000 for a car? What are you buying? Just spend twice as much and get a brand new Carolla which will last you probably 20 years.
So why not buy a 5 year old one for $8000 which will, by your math, last another 15?
Boy, that's sure not my recollection. I remember gamers coming over fast, way ahead of both corporations and casual users.
Might depend on what you played. My recollection is that Win98 hung on for ages after XP arrived, due to compatibility and performance issues.
Remember, Win98 used a tiny fraction of the resources that Windows XP required. XP required VASTLY more RAM and more CPU than 98 to reach even close to the same level of performance. (Sounds familiar to XP - Vista actually.)
So gamers hung onto 98 for quite a while, due to the increased performance, and shunned XP's cpu and ram bloat. Hell, by the time XP launched, there were still popular titles from big publishers (Ubisoft's Rainbow Six series, expansions, etc, for example) that still didn't even officially support Win2000 by 2002 (although with some coaxing and luck could usually be made to work.)
And hey you only had to double or even quadruple or even more the amount of ram in your PC and upgrade CPU's.
XP was such a win in gaming: more stable, better task switching, great backwards compat.
A year plus after it was launched maybe.
Sure there were driver problems, but not so bad, nor for so long. I don't suppose there's any data to really show how it went, prove either of us right.
Of course the driver problems weren't so bad, nor for so long. Windows XP was just Windows 2000 with a bit of a facelift. And in particular, for nearly everything, it used exactly the same drivers as 2k. So by the time XP launched, a huge chunk of the drivers had been released for 2+ years, if not longer longer because 2000 wasn't that much of a deviation from NT4.
Serious question: Has anyone here ever seen a TV die? I mean, not from being dropped during a move, but actually just stopping to work. I might be mistaken, but I have the impression these things just don't break.
They actually die a variety of slow deaths. They get blurry, they lose color fidelity (tint), they get dark, or lose contrast (look washed out), they can suffer 'burn in', make high pitched buzzing noises...
A lot of this stuff is repairable... but its not usually worth repairing.
your old tv can't beneft from progressive scan unfortunately, it was a feature that was built in only for HDTVs, and the reason was because dvd player software on computers had it.
Are you sure? I am under the impression that almost any tv that supports 'component inputs' can use and benefit from progressive scan on that connection. There are a LOT of older TVs that aren't "HD" that do accept component.
So going from 480i to 480p had merit but going from 480p to 1080p does not?
If you are comparing original 480i DVD players to newer progressive scan and even upscaling DVD players then yes. Because when your original 480i dvd player wears out a new progressive scan one can be had for under $100, and there is no real point in buying one that isn't progressive scan, the difference to PQ isn't huge, but its cheap and even your old TV can probably benefit.
With bluray/1080p you not only have to replace your TV (and get one that's at least 46", plus a relatively expensive bluray player) to benefit from 1080p, so sure 1080p will have merit when your TV dies and you need to replace it, and bluray players cost $100.
Trouble is, by the time that happens, will bluray still even be relevant?
Plus, DVDs are pevasive now, and can be shared with friends, used in many cars, portable dvd players, laptops, the tv at the beach. A bluray disc will only work at home on your home theatre. Its going to be a while (if it ever happens) that you'll have bluray support everywhere else. And thanks to drm you can't even downsample them down to DVD for your other players.
In other words, both systems fail at authentication, which is, in the end, what passports are trying to provide, and many people think encryption provides.
with respect to encyprtion, that is because *asymmetric* encryption (ie public key encryption or just digital signatures) DOES have applications in verifying authenticity.
I'd want a more in-depth crafting system, and a means to create my own content.
Penis shaped swords, maces, helmets, ... towns.
Yeah, that would be fantastic.
You call that price gouging, I call that supply and demand.
No. I called it both.
Your assertion that profit is evil
I never asserted that. And I don't think that at all. I said a business could be sustained without profit, because its the truth. However, the entire purpose of running a business is to create profits. That is why we go into business, and there is nothing evil about it.
If people are willing to pay a certain price for an object...
Your 'if' fails. They aren't willing. They have no choice. If they could stop buying oil they would. ... why should I sell that object for less?
In general: because your customers will despise you, and switch to an alternative product / vendor the first opportunity they can. This is why, for example, Nintendo hasn't raised their prices on the wii or wii fit despite levels of demand causing systemic shortages. They make a healthy profit on each unit, and their customers feel its good value.
If oil could be done without entirely, or substituted, a lot of people would stop consuming it. But they can't. They are a captive market. So when the price rises dramatically, when there is no correlating rise in the price of supply they naturally, and rightfully, resent the oil companies. The oil companies were making very healthy profits at 80/barrel. At 120/barrel its almost obscene.
Should the oil companies have kept the price lower? No. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying they easily could have, and remained very profitable.
However if they'd done that we'd be facing oil shortages instead of high prices. And then someone else would have stepped in and started re-selling the oil they bought at those lower prices back into the market at higher prices. (Just as 'ebayers' did to the Wii although here it would be on a much bigger scale.)
And average consumers would then be (rightfully) pissed off at the resellers instead of the oil companies. (Just as they were with the Wii, in fact.)
So one way or another without outright price-control legislation, the prices would have gone up. The only question is who will profit.
Do I think its wrong for the public to propose a tax on those windfall profits to redistribute some of the wealth back to the public?
Well... let me put it this way... I think its EQUALLY right or wrong as bailing out mega-corps when they are on the verge of collapse, and if we the people are going to ultimately bear the cost when a mega-corp fails, then we the people should ultimately benefit when a mega-corp has record profits too.
Since we've already gone down the road of bailing out companies that have screwed up royally, I don't see why we shouldn't recover some of those costs by taxing companies that have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
What rational argument is there for: 'socialize the losses, privatize the profits'?
Your entire worldview confuses me.
You clearly don't know what my world view actually is. Its clearly not what you think.
So if you're working for Company 'A' and in your off time at home you have a personal software project that you end up selling to Company 'B,' Company 'A' should be able to discipline you? I think not.
As a matter of fact this is quite common. Particularly if they can argue that you developed the idea in the course of your employment. If you did any of the actual development on company time, or property, you have even less of a leg to stand on.
So yes, if you are an engineer for toyota, and 'in your off time at home, you develop a new fuel injection design', you can bet your ass Toyota will claim ownership of it -- after all, they'll assert the brainchild of the invention occured as a result of what you were exposed to at work.
Its a well known maxim, that if you have a patentable idea in your personal time, that you should quit the company, and wait 6 months to a year before publishing precisely to ensure they don't come back at you to claim ownership. Either that, or get your boss to sign off that its yours before you start working on it. (assuming you feel you can trust them not to steal it from you when you disclose the idea to them... but if that's your fear... see above: quit and wait.)
If this was coded on official paid time, then I would whole agree with you, but there is no way to actually know.
Did the military provide the laptop he used?
Even if they didn't, if the idea he developed is something that was within the 'scope' of his job, they'd still have a good shot at asserting they owned the project. It may not be 'right', but the law has ruled multiple times in cases like this, siding with the employer.
Profits are the amount of money earned beyond the cost of producing the saleable goods but that doesn't mean there's no use/need for that money.
There are plenty of uses for that money. I never said otherwise.
In order for the business to grow to meet future demands for its product those profits have to be reinvested in the company.
By definition, growth, is over and above "sustain". The operative word in this discussion is sustain. You do need profit to grow, you do not need profit to "sustain".
Some of the profits have to be put away for times when the income of the company drops or for emergencies.
1) You can have cash reserves without having profit.
2) You are describing a situation where the business is unprofitable, relying on past profits to see it through. All that demonstrates is that a formerly profitable business is potentially (generally) more resilient to being temporarily unprofitable. And that's true... but really, quite, irrelevant. Being (formerly) profitable is one way of building up cash reserves, but its not the only way.
Additionally, consuming past profits to sustain an unprofitable business is really just profit averaging over multiple years. If you are profitable for 5 years and then take a big loss that eats up all those profits, then you really just ran a profit neutral business.
You obviously have never run a business and had to try to plan for every eventuality and build that into the price of your goods.
I do run a business and I do build the cost of building/replenishing "insulatory cash reserves" into my product pricing.
It's just not possible. You account for what you can measure and quantify, build as much of that into the cost as you can and still be competitive and try to make some kind of profit to insulate you against the things you can't plan for and prepare you for future growth.
You build in what you know, you estimate what you don't know. Sure you can still be hit for even more than that. But that's a never-ending cycle... there is always the possibility you'll be hit with some unexpected extraordinary cost that will exceed everything you have planned for, and anything you can afford to pay. It doesn't matter how profitable you are. That's just life.
for and prepare you for future growth
growth != sustain. You need profit to grow a business. You do not need it to sustain a business.
The oil companies are responsible for all kinds of horrible things including predatory business practices, sitting on patents, etc... etc... But price gouging isn't one of them. The high cost of gas in the US is being caused by inadequate refinery capacity, a weakened dollar, and growing demand for petroleum from developing nations.
What exactly do you think "price gouging" is?
When demand goes up, and supply can't be added fast enough to meet the demand, what happens? The price goes up. The cost of supply on the other hand doesn't. And profits go up as a result. Even if we were to agree the price has gone exactly where it 'should' be based on the effect of increased demand and the inability (or alleged unwillingness) to increase supply to match, there is no avoiding the fact that the prices have gone up signficantly while costs haven't.
Why shouldn't 'the public' view that us 'unfair'?
If I charge $5 for water bottles that I paid $1 for, and I bring 10,000 of them to a concert, where I expect to sell out just before the end... but then on arrival find out a lot more people are coming than I expected and its hotter than I expected. So what do I do? I can't get more, the concert is in some remote area and there is no time. So I raise my prices to $20 because I know I'll still sell out before the end. That's just supply and demand at work, right?
Yet I still think an awful lot of concert goers are going to accuse me of price gouging. I wouldn't blame them. There is, after all, no reason I couldn't have stuck to selling them at $5/bottle. I still would have made a healthy profit.
Oil is the same situation.
Not exactly a government by the people for the people.
It sounds fine to me. "The people" are no less powerful or arbitrary than a monarch. The only difference is that 'we the people' (or our representatives) decide when we will allow ourselves to be sued rather than 'the king'.
Remember, when you sue the government, on some level your really just suing the people. Granted, there are are enough layers that this is largely theoretical, and granted the person deciding 'we the people don't feel like being sued today' is more likely acting in his own interest rather than actually representing 'the people'... but that's not the point.
Even if the democratic process were functioning perfectly, if someone tried to sue the 'government', the people could decide whether or not they agreed to be sued.
And even if you think that is "wrong" and shouldn't be allowed, consider this: in a perfect democracy if someone tried to sue the government, and the majority of the people disagreed with being sued, they could simply pass legislation allowing them to do whatever was done.
The problem is not the actual computers but the records that are on them, if someone (like a business) owned these computers (like an internet cafe) then they can do as they wish with them, however these computers were used with the understanding that they had some privacy. In effect the librarian was deciding what to do with the data of all the people who used those computers, not just the computers.
If you used a library computer with the expectation that any 'records' you left on it was private, then you are a fool. I would EXPECT a library computer to be monitored.
No, I'd blame both parties. The police shouldn't have asked for that much without a warrant and the librarian shouldn't have consented
Its the police's job to extract as much cooperation from the public as they can to solve a crime. Its our job, to know that this is EXACTLY what we pay them to do. It our job to KNOW, that just because they've asked for something that we don't have to give it to them. We are paying them to ask for more than they are entitled.
I shouldn't need to be afraid of the police,
You shouldn't be. I'm not.
they are the ones responsible for upholding the law. My job as a citizen is to contribute to society by paying taxes that pay for these officers. So if I need to know my rights because I have to fear the police taking advantage of me, there is something wrong.
As a citizen you should know your rights, and have at least a basic understanding of the law, regardless.
The police are *trained* to use every legal avenue to get what they are looking for. They are *trained* in the arts of manipulation, persuasion, interrogation, investigation. Then they are given extraordinary powers, and handguns. Those are their tools, what they need to get the job we've hired them to do done.
Its their job is to investigate crime and they will do that to the best of their ability. Their job is to 'take advantage' of any cooperation they can extract from the public.
Remember: "You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney..."
If you don't want to be 'taken advantage of': memorize them, exercise them. Its not hard. Those are the rules they are playing by, if you don't want to be taken advantage of you have to play by them too.
I think this is becoming less true over time - local machines are becoming more cost effective. For $259, I can get a Dell 350N dual-core processor. The freaking warranty use to cost more than that. More and more of the total cost is in the I/O systems - the Dell 350N is advertised with a $200 flat-panel monitor, and if you add a printer, it the actual computer becomes a minority of the cost.
Yes, already today, the computer is the cheap part, and the biggest issue driving upgrades is windows rot. People buy a new computer because it makes far more sense to buy a brand new $200 PC than to pay someone $150 to clean out the latest virus infection, and maybe upgrade the ram or hd.
The sales pitch for thin client isn't going to be about the cost of local hardware, its going to be 'somebody else' is going to take responsibility for cleaning up the messes, dealing with malware, backing up your documents all so you don't have to.
Sadly too many people will think handing over their data and paying a tidy sum is going to be a 'deal'.
Part of the issue is that the FBI has an enourmously imbalanced amount of power in any FBI - some_guy interaction.
Fair enough. ...Consequently, the FBI has a responsibility to use their power correctly, gently, and in an absurdly by the book way, in order to avoid even the appearance of abusing that authority. IMHO, that means always getting a warrant instead of going on extrajudicial fishing expeditions.
Whereas I drew a completely different conclusion. I would say, 'consequently individuals and businesses have a responsibility to learn what their rights are, how to stick up for them, and how to deal with the police / FBI'.
As anyone can tell you, criminals are much more adept at dealing with the police than the regular public. They know the law better, their rights better, and have much less groundless fear.
I agree that it should be up to the library staff whether the police question them or look at surveillance tapes or at computers in the absence of a warrant. But they didn't look at the computers in question. They removed them from the library, depriving the public of their use. It's an unreasonable deprivation of property unless there's a warrant issued for it.
And if you were the librarian in charge, that would have been your decision to make. You could have told the police just that. So, in this case, the librarian made a decision you don't agree with and you are blaming the police for asking, rather than the librarian for agreeing?
namely the seizing of records / assets without any oversight.
They weren't 'seized'. They asked for them, and they were given to them by the person responsible for them. He or she could have said no.
I don't want some librarian making the decision on whether to give up these publicly financed assets for snooping by any authority. Any smooth-talking agent can come in, reciting that it is for "terrorism / anthrax" or "the children / child porn" and the intimidated lady will just cave in. I know my friend's 60 year old mother who works as our local librarian would. She is neither lawyer nor judge, and should not function as such.
If the police want security tapes from a local business, for example, they have always just asked for them. The business isn't obligated to hand them over in that situation, but often does anyway, to be helpful. If they chose not to hand them over, then the police can seek a warrant.
This is not like the librarian handing over borrowing records for patrons. They -should- be obligated to protect patrons privacy and require a warrant for that. But if the police want to review the surveillance tapes, or look at a computer, or question the staff... then it is, and should be up to the library staff whether they feel like requiring the police to bring in a warrant before cooperating.
Which means you can disable signing for development purposes. You cannot sign something for your local machine only. So we can either disable the signing feature, or let microsoft decide for us what we trust. The better option is to disable it, which adds exactly 0 to our security... and this option doesn't even seem to be available for bootloaders, which is what this thread is about.
That is exactly the sort of misinformation that I'm talking about.
Read the following from microsoft:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa906288.aspx
also see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa906249.aspx
So:
1) You -can- make self signed code that runs on a single machine, by adding your own root certificate.
2) You -can- make self signed code that runs within an enterprise network, signed with an *internally managed* certificate authority. (CA)
3) This code signing system applies to all code: applications, device drivers, and I can reasonably assume, bootloaders.
The only exception to the above, is the "Protected Media Path" (PMP), which has a code signing policy that does NOT accept self-signed code, that requires all software in the 'path' to be approved by the RIAA/MPAA/etc. So you absolutely can write an
Most ad-supported websites WANT you to go away if you're blocking ads. There are ALREADY websites attempting to lock people out by using javascript and other tactics to detect ad-blockers.
I think i said intelligent people knew better than that. I agree there is a significant chunk of braindead website owners out there that think preventing people from visiting is a good idea. In the long run most of those websites suffer for it. Some, like the NYT have a big enough 'brand' to get away with it. Most don't.
But if it worked like that, then your boss couldn't send you an email tagged with features like "do not forward" or "self destruct on a certain date". You can't enforce those types of "features"... you can't enforce those rules... if the owner has control of his own computer.
And the problem with that is what exactly? If my boss wants to enforce policy on my laptop, he's welcome to buy one, so that HE owns it, and then provide it to me configured the way he likes. That way I am just the user, and he the owner.
But if I'm the owner, then its absurd for him to be able to set policy on my hardware against my will. Although I might, if asked politely, respect the company policy of my own volition, even to the point of installing automatic enforcement to prevent accidents. Of course, I can remove that policy at any time - being the owner, but at least it won't happen by accident. If the compnay wants more control than that, they can provide me a laptop.
The economic damage would be incalculable, the social disruption would be incalculable. The call to finally secure the internet, to finally secure computers, would be unstoppable.
Go ahead, tell me *that* nightmare scenario is completely impossible.
I think cooler brighter heads would prevail before implementation. Idiots will cheer anything.
In any case what happens a few months later, when some hacker compromised the chain of trust, and released a virus that was 'trusted', a virus that was trusted by the machine more than the owners themselves were trusted by the machine. Oh, what fun that would be.