I don't believe that the issue here is the legality of the activities. Obviously, given that most houses are visible from public property, it isn't such a big deal. Perhaps creepy and suspicious, yes, to see a group of folks walking around the neighborhood, snapping photos of each house, but not illegal.
However, I think that the concern here is in line with the standard "slippery slope" fears. Yes, photographing property is legal and relatively harmless (unless it is a bridge or tunnel... because that's terrorism). However, doing it en masse starts to become a concern. At what point do such large-scale attempts at data gathering allow for enforcement officials to wield more power than they would have otherwise?
It starts with allowing photos for marketing purposes. Then it's okay to give them to police, for informational purposes. Then the police can penalize or arrest anyone who is in violation of the law, as determined from the photos. Then the police can determine patterns of criminal activity based upon house style. Lastly, all people without white picket fences (aka Unamerican Unpatriots) are arrested.
Oh, final step - Canada invades because the majority of the country is in prison for being Unamerican Unpatriots.
In response - some of the activities that you claim are legal have actually been deemed to be quite the opposite in some areas. The distribution of flyers has been brought to a halt, although I forget exactly where that took place. I remember some kickback to that decision by the club community when I was in college. As to the boot, it was declared illegal in Seattle about a month after I had my car booted by a private organization. Although I am imagining that it is not construed as vandalism.
As to the Mooninites - you may have heard about a little scare in Boston this past week, when magnetized Mooninites were put about the city. Check also into the concept of "Throwies" - magnetized clusters of LEDs.
I will concede that vandalism might not be the most accurate charge. However, I still think that there is plenty of legal room to make a few claims about the nature of the devices. Especially in light of the recent IED scare over LED hoax devices.
This is one of the few gray areas of the law where I am actually not sure that law enforcement has done anything wrong. The 'slippery slope' that leads to constant monitoring of all vehicles, their position, etc (including speeding violations, traffic patterns, etc) is definitely something to be worried about... however, in small scales, I can understand this a bit.
What I do not agree with is the placement of unsolicited materials upon private property by a third party. This sounds to me, on a basic level, like vandalism. Perhaps he can sue, as the police did deface his personal property. Am I allowed to attach papers or spray paint or Mooninites to my neighbor's car? Do we judge vandalism based upon how hard it is to remove the materials from the vandalized object? If so, would it not be vandalism if I simple stuck magnetized sex toys to the hood of my neighbor's car? I mean, just as easy to remove.
On the note about attaching electronic devices (mooninite or otherwise) - we should all be able to 'get back at the man' by suing the government for placing suspicious devices on our property, thereby inspiring terror. What if it was a bomb?! If a bright cartoon character in a public place is a hoax device, I fail to see how a hidden, inconspicuous device mounted to the underside of my car is not of a similar, if not more serious, threat to my well being.
I completely agree that it isn't a brilliant marketing strategy. However, it does have me talking about the PS3 with my coworkers again, which means that it has been at least somewhat effective.
I would buy the PS3 for my own gaming habits - I am in love with some of their hallmark games.
I would buy the Wii for the sake of my roommates - we are all a bunch of ex-hardcore gamers who have been looking to buy a new system here in the near future. The Wii would be a fun system for socializing and getting in our gaming fix while not being so immersive as to make us feel like we couldn't turn it off.
We all suffered a nasty addiction called Final Fantasy (although Zelda is similarly dangerous). It all depends if want to buy more stuff for myself, or something that we would all play fairly often, but more casually.
Stupid? Maybe. Now we are all sitting around to discuss the implications of it. Whereas before I was considering heading out to buy a Wii later this week, I am now considering waiting for a while to see what pans out from this.
They are garnering a bit more fodder for discussion. You have more people talking about the system, and that is good. You walk into a game store and the folks are talking about maybe a lower price for the PS3 in a few weeks (because we all know that game stores are notorious for being optimists when telling customers how soon they can get spend money), and suddenly you are thinking about maybe a PS3. This is a chance to generate a bit more buzz. Yes, it might put off immediate PS3 sales, but it might also put off sales of other systems as people hold their breath to find out if maybe they should just wait for the Playstation.
It isn't just removing moisture...
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Water From Wind
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People keep claiming that the project is doomed to failure due the fact that moisture will be removed from the air, thereby creating desert conditions in the surrounding areas. Possible, yes, but there are other factors.
First off, from what I read and heard, it functions by creating small low-pressure systems. These systems have a cooling, and thus condensing, effect on the air. However, given enough of these low systems, you will increase the overall amount of diffusion (high pressure systems would move more rapidly towards these low systems). These warmer bodies of air, as they enter the system, would carry more moisture (warm air has a higher carrying capacity for water vapor), which would then condense at the fans.
Wash, rinse, repeat (profit?)
Of course, questions have to be answered regarding how this, if done in a large scale, would impact the national and global weather patterns. It seems as though this wouldn't work unless it was on a massive scale (not in a drought-ending kind of way, at least).
Well, I doubt that they are using their Wells Fargo student checking accounts to do these transactions.
There is this whole criminal world out there where people, I don't know, "buy things that are illegally acquired." I believe that it is called a black market, and you can buy anything from weapons to people to drugs to, well, botnet systems. Shoot, there is even a baby formula black market that is valued at 7 billion dollars. There is this whole world of organized crime, one which is becoming more and more technically savvy.
Underground is, well, underground. This isn't just some highschool kid with an "underground h@x0r link" that can get you a cracked version of some software. That's the faux-underground. This stuff that they are talking about is real, is hugely profitable, and mysterious to the uninitiated. A 50,000 dollar transfer, especially with foreign accounts, isn't as tricky as you might imagine.
If they find a way to charge for use of the local cell installed on the plane, I bet that you will find fewer people that actually sign up to do it. I am unsure of what technical issues they would face, but it seems to me that they could charge either the individual carriers when one of their customers used the airplane's tower (like roaming charges), or... ? Making people reprogram their SIMM cards would be too much of a pain.
However, if there is a way to charge for it, you can bet that the airlines are already figuring out how.
Wait, you are saying that all of this is because the Chinese government is listening to its people?! The article, in its full paragraph length, says that one of the key factors here is the Chinese import market and the desire of the Chinese government to lower costs (and, I would imagine, be able to create their own chargers that meet the standards, as opposed to having to fight with patents over someone else's product).
Also, how many cell phones do you take on a trip to actually have it eat of brainspace? This only applies to handsets for phones. Laptops, mp3 players, PDAs, shavers, etc are not covered by this.
I just went to the web site for the legal councel that is representing the poor and innocent Wii victims, filing a complaint against their company with the included online form. Nothing rude, nothing inane... I simply informed them that I am opposed to their lawsuit, told them that it seemed frivilous, and that I would watch the proceedings and subsequent fallout with some interest.
I am neither a fanboy nor a complete idiot. I simply think that this whole case is a joke, and feel that the law firm, when taking cases concerning the public, should hear what the public thinks.
I wish that I could mod you for creative use of the term "douchbag" - +1 for douchbaggery. I think that I need to use that term in our next developers' meeting.
Potassium and sodium both react violently to water, and that might be what you saw get dropped into the bathtub on the show that you mentioned. There was an uninformed temp science teacher back when I was in high school who dropped a large piece (as opposed to the sliver that most science teachers used) into a fish tank. The sides of the tank blew out and the remaining piece of potassium was embedded in the fiberboard ceiling tiles.
As to there being possiblities to create volatile substances on a plane, yes, it is doable - just not quite like it has been portrayed by the government and media. Regular water can be caused to emit hydrogen gas with a battery, some wire, and some carbon. Should all water be banned from flights, all batteries and electronic devices thrown into a bin at the security gate?
Regarding your white powder and two liquid explosive, a few things. First, did you see them make it? If so, was it in a controlled environment, was it thrown together in a beaker and left to sit on a counter, or did it skip the step that whole '30 minute' period? If so, I would not be surprised if there was a way of controlling the temperature of the mixture due to the typically volatile nature of creating explosives.
Secondly, placing a reactive substance into a container (such as a watermelon) and making said container explode is not remarkable. Dry ice and some water in a sealed 2-liter bottle with a cap on it will cause the bottle to quite forcibly explode. However, people have been touching onto said bottles while they blew up and not lost any fingers. People have also held firecrackers in their closed hands and been less fortunate in the retaining of all their digits.
Lastly, if people could in fact easily create this explosive, would we not all be required to give up carry-on luggage and clothes while on a flight? After all, a match head of the stuff would cause quite a stir, correct? All fillings in teeth would have to go, and we would be subject to very detailed cavity searches. In fact, flying as a whole would probably need to shut down, as would all forms of public transit. Of course, ignore the fact that, in aviation, more people have died in the EU since 9/11 due to civil air and passenger air transit than were killed in the event itself (based upon the EU's report that 983 people died in 2005 alone).
Flying is inherently dangerous. We know that. It is dangerous with or without a bottle of disinfectant. It is dangerous with or without a box cutter. It is dangerous with out without D.B. Cooper. Thank you, Government, for protecting me from one small risk, which, while catastrophic if it occurs, has an impossibly small likelihood of occuring.
I am currently writing up the risk analysis for my office. You look at how dangerous the event is if it happens, and how likely it is to occur. Standard practice that, for whatever, reason, was ignored in the latest and greatest of the You're All Going to Die media campaign.
I agree with you in word choice, but not in meaning. Yes, I do feel that there are two different groups, as you mentioned (well, two main groups and a wide variety of individuals falling between these poles). However, I think that the implications of preference of "simplicity" and "complexity" by young and old generations needs to be addressed. In particular, what kind of simplicity you mean.
Yes, I do think that the Baby Boomers are a fan of simplicity. However, it isn't simplicity of informational density, but simplicity of process. These same folks who are used to reading the New York Times for their news can root through an informationally-dense mess of an interface, as can be found on MSN or Yahoo. They do not want to go to five different sites to find out about the news, weather, stocks, games, and email. They want to have one hub and read through it. My father thinks Google is useless because it is so plain. Where is what he wants (I showed him how he can add as much as he wants to it, and now he is becoming a convert). So, yes, older adults tend to want to have simplicity, but in how they find information, not in how it is presented.
The clutter that you speak of in the MySpace profiles and teenage bedrooms is indicative of a capacity to handle not so much complexity, but instead multiple threads. You have your stack of books on the desk for class, the heap of guitars and tablature for music, the iPod with someone else's music, the phone with the friends on it, the IM window with more friends on it, the browser open with... Google for search, MySpace for friends, a news site for news, perhaps a few other sites and links (all in seperate tabs, of course). You know what is in each of these spaces (physically and on the web), and use them accordingly. Yes, there is a great deal of clutter, but each tab in the browser, each mound of crap in the room, has its defninite and clear-cut purpose.
My father hates tabs, because he gets confused jumping between them. He would rather go page by page, process by process (email first, then news, then weather, then boat shopping, then back to email, then off). One page to rule them all, serving content that he needs all in one place. When he is done with the news, he clicks his Home button and then clicks the weather link. Us young-uns open up Firefox and launch six tabs immediately, and go between them. YouTube video taking a while to load? Fire off an email. MySpace down again for some sort of 'database maintenance'? Run a search for that band you are listening to on Pandora. Each is a clear service, each has a fairly simply interface (not necissarily a good one, though...MySpace!), and each fragment of simplicity is run in a complex environment.
I think that he is very smart in offering a Mac-only device. First off, there is a definite need for a nice smartphone that ties in with the full world of Apple. I personally don't know a lot about the lack of devices, as I am still using ol' Windows, but some of my Mac friends have griped about it. So, there is a market need, then a delivery of a product.
Secondly, Apple has become known for sexy design. Most people, even if it is begrudgingly, will admit that their products are very sleek and very simple (some see that as a detractor, I guess). So, Apple creates a product that adds just a bit more appeal to their larger product line. Maybe they make a few converts out of the folks in the new-computer market because hey, check this out, it integrates with that awesome new smartphone (admittedly, probably going to be few converts because of a smart phone).
So, what do you have? You have a small section of the market talking about this killer device. It does the dishes, tucks the kids in, and is great in bed. Everyone who has it is better because of it (or so they will say), and everyone who doesn't, well, they just aren't 'in' like these ultra-hip folks. So demand goes up. The PC market demands access. Oh, look a port over to the Windows world, tada, now you can have one, too, you drooling consumer.
They did it with the iPod, they will do it with the iPhone (not a fan boy, just a Windows-based fan).
Websites, or, those who build them, DO prefer Firefox. Something about standards complaince, I believe (currently rewriting my CSS so that it is supported by the last three versions of IE...looks fine on FF).
Actually, FTFA, the money will be spent within 50 years of the death of the last trustee. Even if Bill and Melinda die tomorrow, the third trustee (who happens to be in his mid-seventies) will have to die before the clock starts ticking on the Gates' Foundation's Self-Destruct mechanism. However, given the delays in shipping Vista, we might manage to milk a couple hundred of years from the foundation before it explodes.
Let me see, what is the point? Ah yes, corporate interest in selling a product / service to government in the name of Security, amen. CellularAntenna has a good chance to make a significant amount of money if their devices are not only made to be legal, but also a critical part of law enforcement (useful != critical... I am not sure how letting the police jam my phone signal will make me any safer when under attack by terrorists. How will I be able to let police know that the terrorist in my building is about to exit via the sewer system after he cut the land lines and planted his bomb, unless I have my cell phone? Haven't these people seen the movies?)
In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Pun is different from taking a popular-culture reference, such as The Lord of the Rings, and using a slant rhyme to make a humorous approximation of words that is relevant to the conversation at hand.
What would that do to the department of homeland security? Would our borders be more secure? Would TSA security make you pass through seven checkpoints instead of one? Would we all need performance upgrades to be able to cope with the new government?
And these are the questions we must ask ourselves..
Please, please, please allow me to say this - thank you from the very bottom of my little heart. I have been having a pain-in-the-ass of a day, and your joke has made it notably brighter.
There is this service out there... I believe that it is called Hotmail or something. It is free and easy to use. You sign up for an account (maybe MySpamAccountForOnlineStuffandThings@hotmail.com), and then use it exclusively for online accounts, etc etc. Will it get flooded by SPAM? Absolutely. But who cares, it's your SPAM account.
Or Gmail.
Or Yahoo.
Or any of the free services.
This is easy stuff, folks, and you don't need a temporary address that will eventually be blocked by the majority of the verification systems to take care of it. One account for work, one for personal life (or two, because your 10-year old hotmail account is too full of V1@grA! adds), and one for junk. Not exactly hard to do, folks.
Re:people don't wan't to hold on to a phone 5+ yea
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Why Do Gadgets Break?
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I, too, am of the "sometimes a phone is just a phone" mindset. Crazy, I know, because I am 22, which should mean that I only want the newest and flashiest product. I simply want something that works to make calls and send and receive messages. If I want a camera, I will use my D-SLR (Canon 30D, which, oddly enough, does NOT play.mp3s or stream video from the web). If I want to play games, I will use my Gameboy (which, oddly enough, does not keep track of my contacts or credit report). They are sturdy products that cost a bit more than a knock-off, and which have been designed to do one, and only one, thing.
If you pack too much tech into a device, you drive overall cost up. So, to make a product that is in the comes in at market price for similar, predicate devices, other components have to be cheaper. Nicer camera, need to cut back on the other components. Sturdier LCD, need to cut weight in the case. All of a sudden you have a phone that can do everything to some extent, but nothing well.
If you build something that has a few high-quality components and cuts the crap out, then you can charge the same, make the same profit, and still satisfy those people who just want something that works (I have yet to figure out how to wring service subscriptions out of people whose devices don't support them, but that's another story).
Give me something that will last a long time (I would call 3+ years a long time), that is simple and well designed, and I will pay more for it and expect it to survive, and then tout the company's greatness to all of my friends (who will buy the other feature-heavy products). Give me something that I expect to last no more than two years, that is overburdened with feature creep and where's-the-kitchen-sink-on-this-piece-of-crap design, and I will pay less for it and expect it to break, and then explain to my friends why they shouldn't buy products from such a stupid company.
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That will happen when the attacks are traced to North Korea.
I don't believe that the issue here is the legality of the activities. Obviously, given that most houses are visible from public property, it isn't such a big deal. Perhaps creepy and suspicious, yes, to see a group of folks walking around the neighborhood, snapping photos of each house, but not illegal.
... because that's terrorism). However, doing it en masse starts to become a concern. At what point do such large-scale attempts at data gathering allow for enforcement officials to wield more power than they would have otherwise?
However, I think that the concern here is in line with the standard "slippery slope" fears. Yes, photographing property is legal and relatively harmless (unless it is a bridge or tunnel
It starts with allowing photos for marketing purposes.
Then it's okay to give them to police, for informational purposes.
Then the police can penalize or arrest anyone who is in violation of the law, as determined from the photos.
Then the police can determine patterns of criminal activity based upon house style.
Lastly, all people without white picket fences (aka Unamerican Unpatriots) are arrested.
Oh, final step - Canada invades because the majority of the country is in prison for being Unamerican Unpatriots.
In response - some of the activities that you claim are legal have actually been deemed to be quite the opposite in some areas. The distribution of flyers has been brought to a halt, although I forget exactly where that took place. I remember some kickback to that decision by the club community when I was in college. As to the boot, it was declared illegal in Seattle about a month after I had my car booted by a private organization. Although I am imagining that it is not construed as vandalism.
As to the Mooninites - you may have heard about a little scare in Boston this past week, when magnetized Mooninites were put about the city. Check also into the concept of "Throwies" - magnetized clusters of LEDs.
I will concede that vandalism might not be the most accurate charge. However, I still think that there is plenty of legal room to make a few claims about the nature of the devices. Especially in light of the recent IED scare over LED hoax devices.
This is one of the few gray areas of the law where I am actually not sure that law enforcement has done anything wrong. The 'slippery slope' that leads to constant monitoring of all vehicles, their position, etc (including speeding violations, traffic patterns, etc) is definitely something to be worried about ... however, in small scales, I can understand this a bit.
What I do not agree with is the placement of unsolicited materials upon private property by a third party. This sounds to me, on a basic level, like vandalism. Perhaps he can sue, as the police did deface his personal property. Am I allowed to attach papers or spray paint or Mooninites to my neighbor's car? Do we judge vandalism based upon how hard it is to remove the materials from the vandalized object? If so, would it not be vandalism if I simple stuck magnetized sex toys to the hood of my neighbor's car? I mean, just as easy to remove.
On the note about attaching electronic devices (mooninite or otherwise) - we should all be able to 'get back at the man' by suing the government for placing suspicious devices on our property, thereby inspiring terror. What if it was a bomb?! If a bright cartoon character in a public place is a hoax device, I fail to see how a hidden, inconspicuous device mounted to the underside of my car is not of a similar, if not more serious, threat to my well being.
I completely agree that it isn't a brilliant marketing strategy. However, it does have me talking about the PS3 with my coworkers again, which means that it has been at least somewhat effective. I would buy the PS3 for my own gaming habits - I am in love with some of their hallmark games. I would buy the Wii for the sake of my roommates - we are all a bunch of ex-hardcore gamers who have been looking to buy a new system here in the near future. The Wii would be a fun system for socializing and getting in our gaming fix while not being so immersive as to make us feel like we couldn't turn it off. We all suffered a nasty addiction called Final Fantasy (although Zelda is similarly dangerous). It all depends if want to buy more stuff for myself, or something that we would all play fairly often, but more casually.
Stupid? Maybe. Now we are all sitting around to discuss the implications of it. Whereas before I was considering heading out to buy a Wii later this week, I am now considering waiting for a while to see what pans out from this.
They are garnering a bit more fodder for discussion. You have more people talking about the system, and that is good. You walk into a game store and the folks are talking about maybe a lower price for the PS3 in a few weeks (because we all know that game stores are notorious for being optimists when telling customers how soon they can get spend money), and suddenly you are thinking about maybe a PS3. This is a chance to generate a bit more buzz. Yes, it might put off immediate PS3 sales, but it might also put off sales of other systems as people hold their breath to find out if maybe they should just wait for the Playstation.
People keep claiming that the project is doomed to failure due the fact that moisture will be removed from the air, thereby creating desert conditions in the surrounding areas. Possible, yes, but there are other factors.
First off, from what I read and heard, it functions by creating small low-pressure systems. These systems have a cooling, and thus condensing, effect on the air. However, given enough of these low systems, you will increase the overall amount of diffusion (high pressure systems would move more rapidly towards these low systems). These warmer bodies of air, as they enter the system, would carry more moisture (warm air has a higher carrying capacity for water vapor), which would then condense at the fans.
Wash, rinse, repeat (profit?)
Of course, questions have to be answered regarding how this, if done in a large scale, would impact the national and global weather patterns. It seems as though this wouldn't work unless it was on a massive scale (not in a drought-ending kind of way, at least).
US law is like Man Law - a universal truth with a reach that transcends all borders.
Well, I doubt that they are using their Wells Fargo student checking accounts to do these transactions.
There is this whole criminal world out there where people, I don't know, "buy things that are illegally acquired." I believe that it is called a black market, and you can buy anything from weapons to people to drugs to, well, botnet systems. Shoot, there is even a baby formula black market that is valued at 7 billion dollars. There is this whole world of organized crime, one which is becoming more and more technically savvy.
Underground is, well, underground. This isn't just some highschool kid with an "underground h@x0r link" that can get you a cracked version of some software. That's the faux-underground. This stuff that they are talking about is real, is hugely profitable, and mysterious to the uninitiated. A 50,000 dollar transfer, especially with foreign accounts, isn't as tricky as you might imagine.
If they find a way to charge for use of the local cell installed on the plane, I bet that you will find fewer people that actually sign up to do it. I am unsure of what technical issues they would face, but it seems to me that they could charge either the individual carriers when one of their customers used the airplane's tower (like roaming charges), or ... ? Making people reprogram their SIMM cards would be too much of a pain.
However, if there is a way to charge for it, you can bet that the airlines are already figuring out how.
Wait, you are saying that all of this is because the Chinese government is listening to its people?! The article, in its full paragraph length, says that one of the key factors here is the Chinese import market and the desire of the Chinese government to lower costs (and, I would imagine, be able to create their own chargers that meet the standards, as opposed to having to fight with patents over someone else's product).
Also, how many cell phones do you take on a trip to actually have it eat of brainspace? This only applies to handsets for phones. Laptops, mp3 players, PDAs, shavers, etc are not covered by this.
I just went to the web site for the legal councel that is representing the poor and innocent Wii victims, filing a complaint against their company with the included online form. Nothing rude, nothing inane ... I simply informed them that I am opposed to their lawsuit, told them that it seemed frivilous, and that I would watch the proceedings and subsequent fallout with some interest.
I am neither a fanboy nor a complete idiot. I simply think that this whole case is a joke, and feel that the law firm, when taking cases concerning the public, should hear what the public thinks.
I wish that I could mod you for creative use of the term "douchbag" - +1 for douchbaggery. I think that I need to use that term in our next developers' meeting.
Potassium and sodium both react violently to water, and that might be what you saw get dropped into the bathtub on the show that you mentioned. There was an uninformed temp science teacher back when I was in high school who dropped a large piece (as opposed to the sliver that most science teachers used) into a fish tank. The sides of the tank blew out and the remaining piece of potassium was embedded in the fiberboard ceiling tiles.
As to there being possiblities to create volatile substances on a plane, yes, it is doable - just not quite like it has been portrayed by the government and media. Regular water can be caused to emit hydrogen gas with a battery, some wire, and some carbon. Should all water be banned from flights, all batteries and electronic devices thrown into a bin at the security gate?
Regarding your white powder and two liquid explosive, a few things. First, did you see them make it? If so, was it in a controlled environment, was it thrown together in a beaker and left to sit on a counter, or did it skip the step that whole '30 minute' period? If so, I would not be surprised if there was a way of controlling the temperature of the mixture due to the typically volatile nature of creating explosives.
Secondly, placing a reactive substance into a container (such as a watermelon) and making said container explode is not remarkable. Dry ice and some water in a sealed 2-liter bottle with a cap on it will cause the bottle to quite forcibly explode. However, people have been touching onto said bottles while they blew up and not lost any fingers. People have also held firecrackers in their closed hands and been less fortunate in the retaining of all their digits.
Lastly, if people could in fact easily create this explosive, would we not all be required to give up carry-on luggage and clothes while on a flight? After all, a match head of the stuff would cause quite a stir, correct? All fillings in teeth would have to go, and we would be subject to very detailed cavity searches. In fact, flying as a whole would probably need to shut down, as would all forms of public transit. Of course, ignore the fact that, in aviation, more people have died in the EU since 9/11 due to civil air and passenger air transit than were killed in the event itself (based upon the EU's report that 983 people died in 2005 alone).
Flying is inherently dangerous. We know that. It is dangerous with or without a bottle of disinfectant. It is dangerous with or without a box cutter. It is dangerous with out without D.B. Cooper. Thank you, Government, for protecting me from one small risk, which, while catastrophic if it occurs, has an impossibly small likelihood of occuring.
I am currently writing up the risk analysis for my office. You look at how dangerous the event is if it happens, and how likely it is to occur. Standard practice that, for whatever, reason, was ignored in the latest and greatest of the You're All Going to Die media campaign.
I agree with you in word choice, but not in meaning. Yes, I do feel that there are two different groups, as you mentioned (well, two main groups and a wide variety of individuals falling between these poles). However, I think that the implications of preference of "simplicity" and "complexity" by young and old generations needs to be addressed. In particular, what kind of simplicity you mean.
... Google for search, MySpace for friends, a news site for news, perhaps a few other sites and links (all in seperate tabs, of course). You know what is in each of these spaces (physically and on the web), and use them accordingly. Yes, there is a great deal of clutter, but each tab in the browser, each mound of crap in the room, has its defninite and clear-cut purpose.
Yes, I do think that the Baby Boomers are a fan of simplicity. However, it isn't simplicity of informational density, but simplicity of process. These same folks who are used to reading the New York Times for their news can root through an informationally-dense mess of an interface, as can be found on MSN or Yahoo. They do not want to go to five different sites to find out about the news, weather, stocks, games, and email. They want to have one hub and read through it. My father thinks Google is useless because it is so plain. Where is what he wants (I showed him how he can add as much as he wants to it, and now he is becoming a convert). So, yes, older adults tend to want to have simplicity, but in how they find information, not in how it is presented.
The clutter that you speak of in the MySpace profiles and teenage bedrooms is indicative of a capacity to handle not so much complexity, but instead multiple threads. You have your stack of books on the desk for class, the heap of guitars and tablature for music, the iPod with someone else's music, the phone with the friends on it, the IM window with more friends on it, the browser open with
My father hates tabs, because he gets confused jumping between them. He would rather go page by page, process by process (email first, then news, then weather, then boat shopping, then back to email, then off). One page to rule them all, serving content that he needs all in one place. When he is done with the news, he clicks his Home button and then clicks the weather link. Us young-uns open up Firefox and launch six tabs immediately, and go between them. YouTube video taking a while to load? Fire off an email. MySpace down again for some sort of 'database maintenance'? Run a search for that band you are listening to on Pandora. Each is a clear service, each has a fairly simply interface (not necissarily a good one, though...MySpace!), and each fragment of simplicity is run in a complex environment.
I think that he is very smart in offering a Mac-only device. First off, there is a definite need for a nice smartphone that ties in with the full world of Apple. I personally don't know a lot about the lack of devices, as I am still using ol' Windows, but some of my Mac friends have griped about it. So, there is a market need, then a delivery of a product.
Secondly, Apple has become known for sexy design. Most people, even if it is begrudgingly, will admit that their products are very sleek and very simple (some see that as a detractor, I guess). So, Apple creates a product that adds just a bit more appeal to their larger product line. Maybe they make a few converts out of the folks in the new-computer market because hey, check this out, it integrates with that awesome new smartphone (admittedly, probably going to be few converts because of a smart phone).
So, what do you have? You have a small section of the market talking about this killer device. It does the dishes, tucks the kids in, and is great in bed. Everyone who has it is better because of it (or so they will say), and everyone who doesn't, well, they just aren't 'in' like these ultra-hip folks. So demand goes up. The PC market demands access. Oh, look a port over to the Windows world, tada, now you can have one, too, you drooling consumer.
They did it with the iPod, they will do it with the iPhone (not a fan boy, just a Windows-based fan).
Websites, or, those who build them, DO prefer Firefox. Something about standards complaince, I believe (currently rewriting my CSS so that it is supported by the last three versions of IE...looks fine on FF).
Actually, FTFA, the money will be spent within 50 years of the death of the last trustee. Even if Bill and Melinda die tomorrow, the third trustee (who happens to be in his mid-seventies) will have to die before the clock starts ticking on the Gates' Foundation's Self-Destruct mechanism. However, given the delays in shipping Vista, we might manage to milk a couple hundred of years from the foundation before it explodes.
Let me see, what is the point? Ah yes, corporate interest in selling a product / service to government in the name of Security, amen. CellularAntenna has a good chance to make a significant amount of money if their devices are not only made to be legal, but also a critical part of law enforcement (useful != critical ... I am not sure how letting the police jam my phone signal will make me any safer when under attack by terrorists. How will I be able to let police know that the terrorist in my building is about to exit via the sewer system after he cut the land lines and planted his bomb, unless I have my cell phone? Haven't these people seen the movies?)
I guess police like new toys, too?
In the words of Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
...you might even call your mistake ironic, no?
/EnglishMajorRant
Pun is different from taking a popular-culture reference, such as The Lord of the Rings, and using a slant rhyme to make a humorous approximation of words that is relevant to the conversation at hand.
[and the correct answer is no, it is not ironic]
What would that do to the department of homeland security? Would our borders be more secure? Would TSA security make you pass through seven checkpoints instead of one? Would we all need performance upgrades to be able to cope with the new government?
And these are the questions we must ask ourselves..
Would Gates round up all of the jocks, cheerleaders, and hipster-Apple-users in this sweep of efficiency?
Please, please, please allow me to say this - thank you from the very bottom of my little heart. I have been having a pain-in-the-ass of a day, and your joke has made it notably brighter.
There is this service out there ... I believe that it is called Hotmail or something. It is free and easy to use. You sign up for an account (maybe MySpamAccountForOnlineStuffandThings@hotmail.com), and then use it exclusively for online accounts, etc etc. Will it get flooded by SPAM? Absolutely. But who cares, it's your SPAM account.
Or Gmail.
Or Yahoo.
Or any of the free services.
This is easy stuff, folks, and you don't need a temporary address that will eventually be blocked by the majority of the verification systems to take care of it. One account for work, one for personal life (or two, because your 10-year old hotmail account is too full of V1@grA! adds), and one for junk. Not exactly hard to do, folks.
I, too, am of the "sometimes a phone is just a phone" mindset. Crazy, I know, because I am 22, which should mean that I only want the newest and flashiest product. I simply want something that works to make calls and send and receive messages. If I want a camera, I will use my D-SLR (Canon 30D, which, oddly enough, does NOT play .mp3s or stream video from the web). If I want to play games, I will use my Gameboy (which, oddly enough, does not keep track of my contacts or credit report). They are sturdy products that cost a bit more than a knock-off, and which have been designed to do one, and only one, thing.
If you pack too much tech into a device, you drive overall cost up. So, to make a product that is in the comes in at market price for similar, predicate devices, other components have to be cheaper. Nicer camera, need to cut back on the other components. Sturdier LCD, need to cut weight in the case. All of a sudden you have a phone that can do everything to some extent, but nothing well.
If you build something that has a few high-quality components and cuts the crap out, then you can charge the same, make the same profit, and still satisfy those people who just want something that works (I have yet to figure out how to wring service subscriptions out of people whose devices don't support them, but that's another story).
Give me something that will last a long time (I would call 3+ years a long time), that is simple and well designed, and I will pay more for it and expect it to survive, and then tout the company's greatness to all of my friends (who will buy the other feature-heavy products). Give me something that I expect to last no more than two years, that is overburdened with feature creep and where's-the-kitchen-sink-on-this-piece-of-crap design, and I will pay less for it and expect it to break, and then explain to my friends why they shouldn't buy products from such a stupid company.