Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient.
That is exactly what will not happen, in fact for many people their daily commute will get slower as autonomous cars will follow all the laws (no sneaky 10 KPH over in light traffic).
I know discussing the realities of it is unpopular on./ but I digress.
There will be no autonomous superhighway of cars bumper to bumper doing 150 KPH because autonomous cars do not break the laws of physics. To go at 150 KPH you need to maintain the same distance to stop irrespective of if they are human driven or autonomous because the braking distance does not change. A 2 second gap MINIMUM is an absolute MINIMUM. Autonomous cars will be programmed to make larger ones. Also human brains react pretty damn fast, reaction times range from less than 0.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Above 3 seconds is DUI/ on the phone territory.
The myth that all the cars will brake together is just that, a myth. Again the laws of physics count against you here. I still regularly get 500 ms pings on my 4G connection (and in the UK, the 4G is pretty good compared to the US). Also there is processing time. An automatic traffic control system will have a dozen checks and balances in it to ensure mistakes aren't made, there will be dozens of SYN/ACK packets as every single car in the area of effect needs to know exactly what to do. Not to mention encryption overheads as you don't want just anyone giving orders to cars.
Processing needs to be onboard as well for error checking and times when the server is unavailable, too busy or the link is down. And it will need to concur with the instructions being given to it by the server. That is why the 150 KPH bumper to bumper highway is a myth. This will take time. Much like an Airbus, if all the computers don't agree completely, control will be thrown back to the pilot. In an autonomous car going bumper to bumper, they wont have time to react even if they're paying attention (which is unlikely).
Also why the idea autonomous cars will save time is a myth, many will actually spend more time on the road because they'll follow laws and rules and it will not ease congestion because of the laws of physics.
The four comments on this story all blame the woman for her own stupidity?
Are you guys for real? Yes I assume you are guys.
Yes and Yes.
Read the story, the woman made a sex tape and sent it to her ex to make him jealous. Thats where it all started two acts of supreme stupidity:
1. Making a sex tape. If she hadn't of recorded herself doing it then there's be nothing to see.
2. Sending it to her ex as an attack. If you do record yourself on the job, its best not to share it... doubly so with anyone you don't explicitly trust (as in with your life). This bit is triply stupid because she sent it to someone she didn't like and didn't like her deliberately.
You cant even blame the ex-boyfriend for sharing it that much either. This wasn't a tape they made together in a relationship, it wasn't something that was released accidentally, its something she made expressly to get back at him.
And as for blaming the internet, the internet is an inanimate object, an inanimate, non-anthropomorphic entity that contains a lot of porn. The internet does not feel jealousy, or rage, or remorse, or pity... it just delivers whatever a user requests.
So yes, the blame lies entirely on the woman who tried to get back at her ex. Its her fault for doing it and her fault it backfired.
But this is Italy. so there will be a court ruling that will be universally ignored until a politician is caught with his pants down... which should be in about 20 minutes (Silvio, is that you I hear in the background).
No, it was wrong intelligence. Or else, why did UK, run by a Left wing government run by Tony Blair, back that? They could easily have told the US that Iraq had nothing, and that would have worked, but everybody's intelligence agencies seemed to suggest that Saddam had chemical and/or biological weapons
Labor under Blair only slightly more left wing as the Conservatives under Cameron. Both were very centrist and tend to follow the Third Way.
However Blair followed Bush for the same reason Howard, Australia's PM at the time followed Bush. They both had their tongues so far up Bush's arse that they became the lump in his throat.
You've got to be kidding yourselves to think that Blair and the UK Brass didn't know the intelligence was a complete fabrication. Much like the US military heads they thought that Iraq would be a pushover and the people would meekly accept a western occupation, the military would get a nice budget boost and politicians would get a nice boost in the polls.
Both Blair and Howard lost the next election after 2003, Iraq was no small part of the reasons they lost.
The problem in Christianity is because GOD is both loving and powerful,
Sounds like someone has only read the sanitised version of the KJV bible.
In older and unsanitised variants God is vengeful and violent, sometimes to the point of petulance.
This is my problem with organised religion, the Abrahamic religions in particular where the religious ideas are changed or interpreted to fit the desires of the leaders of the day. KJV means King James Version, a king rewrote the bible to suit him... and he wasn't the first or last. In fact we have large sects of Christianity divided on exactly what they think God is all about (Anglican, Catholic, Protestant) and still regularly fight over it.
It wasn't so long ago that the "loving and peaceful" Christians acted just like the hateful Islamic preachers that the Racists like to pretend are common. Some Christians still act like that (KKK, Lords Resistance Army, that "god hates fags" lot). Only recently have the majority of Christian changed to the belief that God is all loving and wants peace, like the majority of Islamic preachers preach... the ones racists like to ignore.
Shock horror... Li-ion/po batteries aren't the least of which.
Batteries are only supposed to last so many charge cycles before dying. Cells die, batteries ignore them, capacity is reduced. Smaller batteries are worse than larger batteries as you cant put as many individual cells in them.
Considering that headphones are tiny, they're going to have tiny batteries that will last a few hours at best, so instead of having headphones plugged into a device that weighs 100g, Apple fanboys are going to have the charging cables plugged into a battery pack that weighs 500g and then have their 100g device in another pocket.
Also, the 3.5mm jack was designed that the plug... or more specifically the connector to the plug (that bit with the plastic fins on it) would wear out first. That being said, the last pair of headphones I replaced, were replaced due to the material around the earpieces fading... took about 4 years and they still worked, but I decided I'd go and buy another set of Senn's because I was so satisfied with these $50 headphones that had lasted years. In 25 years of using a 3.5mm jack, I've never even heard of one breaking without some very serious force applied by some idiot.
Apple no longer sells DRM'ed music so what is this analog hole you claim Apple is trying to plug by removing the jack?
Surely you aren't that naive?
Apple Customer: My old songs wont play on the new laptop. Apple: Our latest iPenetrate security platform is designed to keep you safer than ever before. Apple Customer: durrrr.... Apple: You'll just have to download all your songs again to make them compatible. /customer ignorantly goes off and downloads.
Content Industry: And the sheep are buying that this is for their protection? Apple: Yes master, they're our bitches they'll do what they're told. Content Industry: Do not forget Darth Cook, even you can be... replaced.
You can probably swap Apple for any online content vendor, once the hardware numbers reach a critical mass, the content industry will force everyone to do it.
Problem with that argument is that in order to so, a totally digital audio reproduction path is needed, with digital all the way to the voice coil or peizo plate in the speaker. Video can be replaced since digital LCD panels can use proprietary drivers to switch individual pixels and capturing that requires capturing the light and colour from each pixel element. Until someone can invent a non-electrially driven sound element, capturing that single electrical signal is a simple task, even if it means sacrificing a pair of Beatz (oh the Horror!!!)
You misunderstand what plugging the analogue hole is all about.
Plugging the analogue hole isn't about ensuring media cant be copied, if it can be viewed or heard it can be copied... the people behind this are not daft, in fact they're quite brilliant.
So this isn't about stopping experts who know how to copy media, its about stopping the evreyman who has no idea what a pixel element or peizo plate is. Plugging the analogue hole means that non-approved media will not play, everything in the chain is authenticated and authorised against the owner servers. Plugging the analogue hole is about creating a white list of authorised content and banning anything that isn't authorised from even being played. They know they can never stop the copying, but they can stop Joe Average from playing the latest season of MasterCrap he downloaded from bit torrent.
The Good: if there are known threats that can be filtered, this is the most efficient level on which to do them.
The Bad: this will inevitably be extended to blocking torrent sites, Wikileaks and any web sites I administer.
The Ugly: it will create a false sense of security, "educating" users to be less educated about their machines.
Erm.. the UK already requires ISP's to block torrent sites. It's as effective as an ashtray on a motorbike. Every torrent site can be accessed via a simple google search and they've simply given up on playing whack-a-mole with new URLs. As long as they have "thepiratebay.*" blocked, ISP's have effectively done all they legally have to and stooped caring.
Here in the UK, a lot of places accept a whole bunch of digital payments but yet most people still use their debit cards or cash. There are many reasons for this but it is not because of outdated terminals, just about every Sainsbury's or Tesco accepts digital payments.
The reasons people don't use so-called "digital wallets" are:
1. They're just wrappers for existing products. To avoid the requirements banks have to adhere to, most will just charge to your credit card. If they held money for you then they'd have to be properly PCI compliant, instead they let your financial institution worry about PCI compliance and just serve as an intermediary for that service.
2. They're less convenient. Getting out your card and typing your PIN is faster and easier, cash is even easier and faster.
3. Layer of obfuscation, when tracking your spending you now have another party in the mix.
4. Ultimately they are more expensive. When you add more parties into the mix, they each have their hand out for a portion of the purchase. This means the merchant has to put their prices up to compensate for having to pay more fees to accept payment. This is why cash is still king. you don't have third party providers asking for a cut.
5. "Digital" means it runs on a battery, batteries run out.
6. People are scared of having their phones lost, stolen or broken. To be fair there is a bit of merit here, if I drop my wallet all of my cash and cards are fine, if I drop my phone I have to hope it still works.
Basically, digital wallets are a solution looking for a problem. Until providers actually decide they want to be banks rather than wrappers for your credit card and go full PCI compliant, they wont be a popular alternative.
In fact I think banks, who are notoriously conservative will take the initiative first and go digital. I believe a few Australian banks already offer cardless withdrawal services where you can get a pin code on your phone and type that into an ATM/Cashpoint to get out a small amount, A$50 or so from memory.
I prefer to use good old CASH for most of my daily, meatspace transactions.
As do I.
But I use all forms of payment, cash, debit, credit and direct debit/bank transfers. I use the form of payment most appropriate to what I am buying. Only a fool discounts a potential form of payment, only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of fools limits themselves to just one. That being said, I treat credit like the sugar of the personal finance diet. A little sugar is fine, a diet consisting of 90% sugar means you have problems.
And sometimes people just give stupid reviews for no reason. If you need a locksmith in a hurry then it means something has gone wrong and you're going to be in a pissy mood and angry at the entire world, and chances are you take it all out on the guy that's driving out in the rain to help you.
And this is why I don't trust my purchasing decisions to anonymous reviews.
I've been on the intertubes long enough to know that there are a number of people who get off on giving other people grief, we call them trolls.
Some people are permanently pissy and are never satisfied, OTOH, some people have very low standards and give 5 start to everything. Both extremes tend to skew the reliability of anonymous reviews, hence I never rely on them.
The only time where I think about using anonymous reviews are times where it's interactive, such as a forum. I tend to use them quite a bit for travelling. Also owner replies, how an owner replies is a bigger indication of how the business is run than a cliche laden, angry rant.
Ultimately user review sites are going to end up being devalued by trolls and other extremes that are inherent from anonymous messaging. I pretty much only read Yelp, Google reviews and the like for the LoLs, there are a few trolls out there... but also a few comedians.
The big turn around came when they first started limiting the advertisement of cigarettes, then banning it.
Ultimately, whilst they were able to send messages promoting smoking, smoking rates continued to be high.
Since the 90's, people have gotten the message about smoking and uptake rates have plummeted.
Yes, I'm one of those evil ex-smokers who quit because the govt raised the tax on smokes... 15 years ago and I don't regret it. One of the few good things John Howard did.
When it first came out I tried it and after discovering it's a complete waste of resources, I uninstalled it. For years now I have deliberately unchecked it during installation of NVidia drivers. I also turn off the system tray icon.
I feel that drivers must just do their job quietly in the background without ever bothering me. For those twice a year occasions when I need to tweak something, it's a 1.5 seconds away in a start menu search.
This.
I install the driver and nothing else. I don't need nor want extra crap on my machine. Mandatory registration is just going to see more people figure out how to de-select it during install.
I have only apathy-to-mild-antipathy for Apple, but think it's pretty abusive of these governments to attempt to charge them retroactively for taxes that they were dodging fair and square, and pretty dangerous and short-sighted for the general populace to so gleefully support these sort of violations of ex post facto.
Erm, they aren't charged retroactively. Retroactively implies that the law was changed and payments were backdated.
Apple is being asked to pay the amount of tax they were supposed to pay in the first place.
I think you need to spend a little time with the dictionary and learn what retroactive means.
Yours is the first retort trotted out by the statists, yet you never explain how one is to opt out of government.
And your first resort is name calling, that demonstrates you don't have a point to articulate.
You opt out of a government by leaving it's borders. There are still a few places that have no government and plenty more that have no effective government. Of course these places tend to be violent, corrupt or both and have poor services and living standards. Hell, there are plenty of small islands that no-one would ever bother you on if you went and lived there even though they are technically governed.
However you don't want to live like that, you want all the benefits that governments provide without having to do or pay anything. You would like anarchy but still want to be protected from your neighbours. Sorry, but reality does not work that way.
Whilst our western democracies and republics are not perfect, they're a hell of a lot better than all the other forms of government we have tried and they give us a huge say in what government does. There are many, many countries were people are not given this freedom.
So kindly take your name calling and libertarian bullshit and shove it up your arse.
The aircraft's systems would not allow the plane to be flown
checks article Yup, Airbus.
Nice selective quoting.
What it actually said was "The aircraft's systems would not allow the plane to be flown in instrument conditions". This basically says the autopilot refused to kick in due to weather conditions and threw controls back to the pilots. The pilots didn't want to land in Sydney due to the aforementioned weather conditions and diverted to the nearest major airport... which was Melbourne.
You've got that backwards. Apple follows Android. Android has always had the significant features first. Copy Paste, permissions management, Wifi hotspot, tethering, predictive text, notifications, interactive notifications, third party keyboards, multitasking, OTA updates, quick access to settings panels.
And this is just the stuff stock android had before IOS, lets not even consider custom ROMS. That would just be embarrassing.
If you want to know what might be in IOS in 18-24 months, look at what Android N is introducing now.
Well, that is one very cynical view. Of course they might have reasons that benefit users. The fact that they offer an adapter rather dispels this theory..
How so?
The fact they offer and adaptor for sale tends to confirm the theory rather than dispel it.
Beyond this you have two problems.
First and foremost is that people hate adaptors. They're a pain in the arse, they get lost, forgotten or stolen. They're difficult to replace at short notice (and cost a kings ransom when they can). They're also quite fragile, on a mobile device this is going to be a huge problem.
Secondly there is only one port, so this means you can charge OR use the adaptor. A lot of people only use the 3.5 mm jack for connecting to the aux in on their cars, its simpler and better quality when using nav and music applications, especially if you're using the one on the head unit and the other on the phone. This means that people wont be able to charge and use their device at the same time in the car, trust me, a lot of people will do this and rely on their commute to charge their phone.
Also, they're another device you need to charge and keep charged.
Get good Bluetooth headphones and you won't want to go back. Hint: x.
Get a cheap pair of wired headphones and listen to the huge increase in quality.
I have a pair of $30 Senn HD201's which aren't particularly high end, they are far better than $300 bluetooth headphones I've used. When you're on a call I can instantly identify anyone using bluetooth as it introduces static, echos and other artefacts, the cheaper devices also introduce noticeable delays.
Bluetooth produces a noticeable drop in audio quality due to compression which is due to limited bandwidth.
I'm sorry that you've drunk the cool aid and need to defend everything that Apple does, but they've seriously screwed up here.
If the renter can supply a good credit rating it should be safe.
Nobody runs a credit check for a one or two night AirBNB stay. Even if they did, that is not a fix to discrimination, since blacks, on average, have worse credit scores.
Also consider that a lot of people using AirBNB will be foreigners to that nation, so no credit check will be possible as different nations use different systems (not to mention privacy laws).
Besides, with AirBNB the payment is taken before you arrive.
Qantas I have personally seen has often been on the cautious side of operations, sometimes to my frustration.
I have personally been on flights where, when de-boarding on the tarmac, they have yelled at us not to use cell phones because of the possibility of fueling + sparks. Yet no other airline I've encountered seems to be concerned about this remote possibility.
Erm, they're not concerned about sparks, they're concerned about you becoming to engrossed in your phone and wandering off.
I've seen this happen a lot on sites that have a lot of danger. People who aren't used to working in such sites walk into boom gates, low hanging bars, chains, brick walls and the like all the time. Last time I was at my mechanics I watched someone walk into a raised car on a hoist because they were too busy buggerising around with their phone (and then he blamed the hoist for being in his way).
Airline and airport staff have a responsibility to ensure that no harm comes to you. Also, before you say that you are good enough to avoid this, you aren't. Doubly so if you've just dismissed the risk out of hand.
Also people on phones slow down the line. There are people behind your meandering arse who want to get out of the airport and you dont have the courtesy to stand aside and get out of everyone's way.
This here. It's a culture shock to Australians which already is a culture shock to North Americans.
But that's it. Culture. Don't expect to get a coffee quickly because it's not a nourishing survival drink as much as a relaxation event and a chance to chill. Caught me off guard at first but now I really like it. Spending an hour having lunch which is a club sandwich and something caffeinated on the side just feels great.
As a "skip" who's recently moved to the UK, this kind of thing is not restricted to Europe. In fact, compared to Asia or South America they're downright speedy. Things like Thai time and Dominicano time are real concepts.
Like the parent said, in Europe you make the trade off of speed for quality.
I think the US is really the oddity where they expect an instant meal or beverage. Even back in Oz, if you wanted a quality coffee you accepted that part of that was the barista was never in a hurry. Same with a quality meal, good preparation takes time.
Slashdot Mirror
"United" States of America?
Plus what will happen to all those horny Russian women who are desperate to meet me?
Plus, even more importantly the statement "Autonomous Vehicles Won't Give Us Any More Free Time" is patently wrong. Once the roads are filled with autonomous cars, even the miniscule percentage of people whose anxiety doesn't get blunted by the boredom of familiarity will still get more time back in their day as the sheer number of automated cars cause traffic flow to be more efficient.
That is exactly what will not happen, in fact for many people their daily commute will get slower as autonomous cars will follow all the laws (no sneaky 10 KPH over in light traffic).
./ but I digress.
There will be no autonomous superhighway of cars bumper to bumper doing 150 KPH because autonomous cars do not break the laws of physics. To go at 150 KPH you need to maintain the same distance to stop irrespective of if they are human driven or autonomous because the braking distance does not change. A 2 second gap MINIMUM is an absolute MINIMUM. Autonomous cars will be programmed to make larger ones. Also human brains react pretty damn fast, reaction times range from less than 0.5 seconds to 3 seconds. Above 3 seconds is DUI/ on the phone territory.
I know discussing the realities of it is unpopular on
The myth that all the cars will brake together is just that, a myth. Again the laws of physics count against you here. I still regularly get 500 ms pings on my 4G connection (and in the UK, the 4G is pretty good compared to the US). Also there is processing time. An automatic traffic control system will have a dozen checks and balances in it to ensure mistakes aren't made, there will be dozens of SYN/ACK packets as every single car in the area of effect needs to know exactly what to do. Not to mention encryption overheads as you don't want just anyone giving orders to cars.
Processing needs to be onboard as well for error checking and times when the server is unavailable, too busy or the link is down. And it will need to concur with the instructions being given to it by the server. That is why the 150 KPH bumper to bumper highway is a myth. This will take time. Much like an Airbus, if all the computers don't agree completely, control will be thrown back to the pilot. In an autonomous car going bumper to bumper, they wont have time to react even if they're paying attention (which is unlikely).
Also why the idea autonomous cars will save time is a myth, many will actually spend more time on the road because they'll follow laws and rules and it will not ease congestion because of the laws of physics.
The four comments on this story all blame the woman for her own stupidity? Are you guys for real? Yes I assume you are guys.
Yes and Yes.
Read the story, the woman made a sex tape and sent it to her ex to make him jealous. Thats where it all started two acts of supreme stupidity:
1. Making a sex tape. If she hadn't of recorded herself doing it then there's be nothing to see.
2. Sending it to her ex as an attack. If you do record yourself on the job, its best not to share it... doubly so with anyone you don't explicitly trust (as in with your life). This bit is triply stupid because she sent it to someone she didn't like and didn't like her deliberately.
You cant even blame the ex-boyfriend for sharing it that much either. This wasn't a tape they made together in a relationship, it wasn't something that was released accidentally, its something she made expressly to get back at him.
And as for blaming the internet, the internet is an inanimate object, an inanimate, non-anthropomorphic entity that contains a lot of porn. The internet does not feel jealousy, or rage, or remorse, or pity... it just delivers whatever a user requests.
So yes, the blame lies entirely on the woman who tried to get back at her ex. Its her fault for doing it and her fault it backfired.
But this is Italy. so there will be a court ruling that will be universally ignored until a politician is caught with his pants down... which should be in about 20 minutes (Silvio, is that you I hear in the background).
No, it was wrong intelligence. Or else, why did UK, run by a Left wing government run by Tony Blair, back that? They could easily have told the US that Iraq had nothing, and that would have worked, but everybody's intelligence agencies seemed to suggest that Saddam had chemical and/or biological weapons
Labor under Blair only slightly more left wing as the Conservatives under Cameron. Both were very centrist and tend to follow the Third Way.
However Blair followed Bush for the same reason Howard, Australia's PM at the time followed Bush. They both had their tongues so far up Bush's arse that they became the lump in his throat.
You've got to be kidding yourselves to think that Blair and the UK Brass didn't know the intelligence was a complete fabrication. Much like the US military heads they thought that Iraq would be a pushover and the people would meekly accept a western occupation, the military would get a nice budget boost and politicians would get a nice boost in the polls.
Both Blair and Howard lost the next election after 2003, Iraq was no small part of the reasons they lost.
The problem in Christianity is because GOD is both loving and powerful,
Sounds like someone has only read the sanitised version of the KJV bible.
In older and unsanitised variants God is vengeful and violent, sometimes to the point of petulance.
This is my problem with organised religion, the Abrahamic religions in particular where the religious ideas are changed or interpreted to fit the desires of the leaders of the day. KJV means King James Version, a king rewrote the bible to suit him... and he wasn't the first or last. In fact we have large sects of Christianity divided on exactly what they think God is all about (Anglican, Catholic, Protestant) and still regularly fight over it.
It wasn't so long ago that the "loving and peaceful" Christians acted just like the hateful Islamic preachers that the Racists like to pretend are common. Some Christians still act like that (KKK, Lords Resistance Army, that "god hates fags" lot). Only recently have the majority of Christian changed to the belief that God is all loving and wants peace, like the majority of Islamic preachers preach... the ones racists like to ignore.
What? Things wear out? What??? UNPOSSIBLE!
Shock horror... Li-ion/po batteries aren't the least of which.
Batteries are only supposed to last so many charge cycles before dying. Cells die, batteries ignore them, capacity is reduced. Smaller batteries are worse than larger batteries as you cant put as many individual cells in them.
Considering that headphones are tiny, they're going to have tiny batteries that will last a few hours at best, so instead of having headphones plugged into a device that weighs 100g, Apple fanboys are going to have the charging cables plugged into a battery pack that weighs 500g and then have their 100g device in another pocket.
Also, the 3.5mm jack was designed that the plug... or more specifically the connector to the plug (that bit with the plastic fins on it) would wear out first. That being said, the last pair of headphones I replaced, were replaced due to the material around the earpieces fading... took about 4 years and they still worked, but I decided I'd go and buy another set of Senn's because I was so satisfied with these $50 headphones that had lasted years. In 25 years of using a 3.5mm jack, I've never even heard of one breaking without some very serious force applied by some idiot.
Apple no longer sells DRM'ed music so what is this analog hole you claim Apple is trying to plug by removing the jack?
Surely you aren't that naive?
/customer ignorantly goes off and downloads.
Apple Customer: My old songs wont play on the new laptop.
Apple: Our latest iPenetrate security platform is designed to keep you safer than ever before.
Apple Customer: durrrr....
Apple: You'll just have to download all your songs again to make them compatible.
Content Industry: And the sheep are buying that this is for their protection?
Apple: Yes master, they're our bitches they'll do what they're told.
Content Industry: Do not forget Darth Cook, even you can be... replaced.
You can probably swap Apple for any online content vendor, once the hardware numbers reach a critical mass, the content industry will force everyone to do it.
Problem with that argument is that in order to so, a totally digital audio reproduction path is needed, with digital all the way to the voice coil or peizo plate in the speaker. Video can be replaced since digital LCD panels can use proprietary drivers to switch individual pixels and capturing that requires capturing the light and colour from each pixel element. Until someone can invent a non-electrially driven sound element, capturing that single electrical signal is a simple task, even if it means sacrificing a pair of Beatz (oh the Horror!!!)
You misunderstand what plugging the analogue hole is all about.
Plugging the analogue hole isn't about ensuring media cant be copied, if it can be viewed or heard it can be copied... the people behind this are not daft, in fact they're quite brilliant.
So this isn't about stopping experts who know how to copy media, its about stopping the evreyman who has no idea what a pixel element or peizo plate is. Plugging the analogue hole means that non-approved media will not play, everything in the chain is authenticated and authorised against the owner servers. Plugging the analogue hole is about creating a white list of authorised content and banning anything that isn't authorised from even being played. They know they can never stop the copying, but they can stop Joe Average from playing the latest season of MasterCrap he downloaded from bit torrent.
The Good: if there are known threats that can be filtered, this is the most efficient level on which to do them.
The Bad: this will inevitably be extended to blocking torrent sites, Wikileaks and any web sites I administer.
The Ugly: it will create a false sense of security, "educating" users to be less educated about their machines.
Erm.. the UK already requires ISP's to block torrent sites. It's as effective as an ashtray on a motorbike. Every torrent site can be accessed via a simple google search and they've simply given up on playing whack-a-mole with new URLs. As long as they have "thepiratebay.*" blocked, ISP's have effectively done all they legally have to and stooped caring.
6) Cut customers off from the internet until they clean their shit up
Will never happen because Profit.
ISP's will never willingly cut off their own customers and will fight tooth and nail to prevent from being forced.
This is why US ISP's happily hand over customer identities to the *IAA for lawsuits rather than have something like a three strikes law.
Here in the UK, a lot of places accept a whole bunch of digital payments but yet most people still use their debit cards or cash. There are many reasons for this but it is not because of outdated terminals, just about every Sainsbury's or Tesco accepts digital payments.
The reasons people don't use so-called "digital wallets" are:
1. They're just wrappers for existing products. To avoid the requirements banks have to adhere to, most will just charge to your credit card. If they held money for you then they'd have to be properly PCI compliant, instead they let your financial institution worry about PCI compliance and just serve as an intermediary for that service.
2. They're less convenient. Getting out your card and typing your PIN is faster and easier, cash is even easier and faster.
3. Layer of obfuscation, when tracking your spending you now have another party in the mix.
4. Ultimately they are more expensive. When you add more parties into the mix, they each have their hand out for a portion of the purchase. This means the merchant has to put their prices up to compensate for having to pay more fees to accept payment. This is why cash is still king. you don't have third party providers asking for a cut.
5. "Digital" means it runs on a battery, batteries run out.
6. People are scared of having their phones lost, stolen or broken. To be fair there is a bit of merit here, if I drop my wallet all of my cash and cards are fine, if I drop my phone I have to hope it still works.
Basically, digital wallets are a solution looking for a problem. Until providers actually decide they want to be banks rather than wrappers for your credit card and go full PCI compliant, they wont be a popular alternative.
In fact I think banks, who are notoriously conservative will take the initiative first and go digital. I believe a few Australian banks already offer cardless withdrawal services where you can get a pin code on your phone and type that into an ATM/Cashpoint to get out a small amount, A$50 or so from memory.
I prefer to use good old CASH for most of my daily, meatspace transactions.
As do I.
But I use all forms of payment, cash, debit, credit and direct debit/bank transfers. I use the form of payment most appropriate to what I am buying. Only a fool discounts a potential form of payment, only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of fools limits themselves to just one. That being said, I treat credit like the sugar of the personal finance diet. A little sugar is fine, a diet consisting of 90% sugar means you have problems.
And sometimes people just give stupid reviews for no reason. If you need a locksmith in a hurry then it means something has gone wrong and you're going to be in a pissy mood and angry at the entire world, and chances are you take it all out on the guy that's driving out in the rain to help you.
And this is why I don't trust my purchasing decisions to anonymous reviews.
I've been on the intertubes long enough to know that there are a number of people who get off on giving other people grief, we call them trolls.
Some people are permanently pissy and are never satisfied, OTOH, some people have very low standards and give 5 start to everything. Both extremes tend to skew the reliability of anonymous reviews, hence I never rely on them.
The only time where I think about using anonymous reviews are times where it's interactive, such as a forum. I tend to use them quite a bit for travelling. Also owner replies, how an owner replies is a bigger indication of how the business is run than a cliche laden, angry rant.
Ultimately user review sites are going to end up being devalued by trolls and other extremes that are inherent from anonymous messaging. I pretty much only read Yelp, Google reviews and the like for the LoLs, there are a few trolls out there... but also a few comedians.
The big turn around came when they first started limiting the advertisement of cigarettes, then banning it.
Ultimately, whilst they were able to send messages promoting smoking, smoking rates continued to be high.
Since the 90's, people have gotten the message about smoking and uptake rates have plummeted.
Yes, I'm one of those evil ex-smokers who quit because the govt raised the tax on smokes... 15 years ago and I don't regret it. One of the few good things John Howard did.
Maybe the whole thing should have been Irish.
Do you know what language most Irish people speak? Hint: It is not Irish.
So it should be delivered in Gaelic?
When it first came out I tried it and after discovering it's a complete waste of resources, I uninstalled it. For years now I have deliberately unchecked it during installation of NVidia drivers. I also turn off the system tray icon. I feel that drivers must just do their job quietly in the background without ever bothering me. For those twice a year occasions when I need to tweak something, it's a 1.5 seconds away in a start menu search.
This.
I install the driver and nothing else. I don't need nor want extra crap on my machine. Mandatory registration is just going to see more people figure out how to de-select it during install.
I have only apathy-to-mild-antipathy for Apple, but think it's pretty abusive of these governments to attempt to charge them retroactively for taxes that they were dodging fair and square, and pretty dangerous and short-sighted for the general populace to so gleefully support these sort of violations of ex post facto.
Erm, they aren't charged retroactively. Retroactively implies that the law was changed and payments were backdated.
Apple is being asked to pay the amount of tax they were supposed to pay in the first place.
I think you need to spend a little time with the dictionary and learn what retroactive means.
Yours is the first retort trotted out by the statists, yet you never explain how one is to opt out of government.
And your first resort is name calling, that demonstrates you don't have a point to articulate.
You opt out of a government by leaving it's borders. There are still a few places that have no government and plenty more that have no effective government. Of course these places tend to be violent, corrupt or both and have poor services and living standards. Hell, there are plenty of small islands that no-one would ever bother you on if you went and lived there even though they are technically governed.
However you don't want to live like that, you want all the benefits that governments provide without having to do or pay anything. You would like anarchy but still want to be protected from your neighbours. Sorry, but reality does not work that way.
Whilst our western democracies and republics are not perfect, they're a hell of a lot better than all the other forms of government we have tried and they give us a huge say in what government does. There are many, many countries were people are not given this freedom.
So kindly take your name calling and libertarian bullshit and shove it up your arse.
You don't shower?
Given that this is Slashdot, that may very well be the case.
checks article Yup, Airbus.
Nice selective quoting.
What it actually said was "The aircraft's systems would not allow the plane to be flown in instrument conditions". This basically says the autopilot refused to kick in due to weather conditions and threw controls back to the pilots. The pilots didn't want to land in Sydney due to the aforementioned weather conditions and diverted to the nearest major airport... which was Melbourne.
So Yep, Airbus... did it right.
expected Android to eventually follow their lead
You've got that backwards. Apple follows Android. Android has always had the significant features first. Copy Paste, permissions management, Wifi hotspot, tethering, predictive text, notifications, interactive notifications, third party keyboards, multitasking, OTA updates, quick access to settings panels.
And this is just the stuff stock android had before IOS, lets not even consider custom ROMS. That would just be embarrassing.
If you want to know what might be in IOS in 18-24 months, look at what Android N is introducing now.
Well, that is one very cynical view. Of course they might have reasons that benefit users. The fact that they offer an adapter rather dispels this theory. .
How so?
The fact they offer and adaptor for sale tends to confirm the theory rather than dispel it.
Beyond this you have two problems.
First and foremost is that people hate adaptors. They're a pain in the arse, they get lost, forgotten or stolen. They're difficult to replace at short notice (and cost a kings ransom when they can). They're also quite fragile, on a mobile device this is going to be a huge problem.
Secondly there is only one port, so this means you can charge OR use the adaptor. A lot of people only use the 3.5 mm jack for connecting to the aux in on their cars, its simpler and better quality when using nav and music applications, especially if you're using the one on the head unit and the other on the phone. This means that people wont be able to charge and use their device at the same time in the car, trust me, a lot of people will do this and rely on their commute to charge their phone. Also, they're another device you need to charge and keep charged.
Get good Bluetooth headphones and you won't want to go back. Hint: x.
Get a cheap pair of wired headphones and listen to the huge increase in quality.
I have a pair of $30 Senn HD201's which aren't particularly high end, they are far better than $300 bluetooth headphones I've used. When you're on a call I can instantly identify anyone using bluetooth as it introduces static, echos and other artefacts, the cheaper devices also introduce noticeable delays.
Bluetooth produces a noticeable drop in audio quality due to compression which is due to limited bandwidth.
I'm sorry that you've drunk the cool aid and need to defend everything that Apple does, but they've seriously screwed up here.
If the renter can supply a good credit rating it should be safe.
Nobody runs a credit check for a one or two night AirBNB stay. Even if they did, that is not a fix to discrimination, since blacks, on average, have worse credit scores.
Also consider that a lot of people using AirBNB will be foreigners to that nation, so no credit check will be possible as different nations use different systems (not to mention privacy laws).
Besides, with AirBNB the payment is taken before you arrive.
Qantas I have personally seen has often been on the cautious side of operations, sometimes to my frustration. I have personally been on flights where, when de-boarding on the tarmac, they have yelled at us not to use cell phones because of the possibility of fueling + sparks. Yet no other airline I've encountered seems to be concerned about this remote possibility.
Erm, they're not concerned about sparks, they're concerned about you becoming to engrossed in your phone and wandering off.
I've seen this happen a lot on sites that have a lot of danger. People who aren't used to working in such sites walk into boom gates, low hanging bars, chains, brick walls and the like all the time. Last time I was at my mechanics I watched someone walk into a raised car on a hoist because they were too busy buggerising around with their phone (and then he blamed the hoist for being in his way).
Airline and airport staff have a responsibility to ensure that no harm comes to you. Also, before you say that you are good enough to avoid this, you aren't. Doubly so if you've just dismissed the risk out of hand.
Also people on phones slow down the line. There are people behind your meandering arse who want to get out of the airport and you dont have the courtesy to stand aside and get out of everyone's way.
This here. It's a culture shock to Australians which already is a culture shock to North Americans.
But that's it. Culture. Don't expect to get a coffee quickly because it's not a nourishing survival drink as much as a relaxation event and a chance to chill. Caught me off guard at first but now I really like it. Spending an hour having lunch which is a club sandwich and something caffeinated on the side just feels great.
As a "skip" who's recently moved to the UK, this kind of thing is not restricted to Europe. In fact, compared to Asia or South America they're downright speedy. Things like Thai time and Dominicano time are real concepts.
Like the parent said, in Europe you make the trade off of speed for quality.
I think the US is really the oddity where they expect an instant meal or beverage. Even back in Oz, if you wanted a quality coffee you accepted that part of that was the barista was never in a hurry. Same with a quality meal, good preparation takes time.