Re: Phew!
Yup, I wish MS would get that notion of one OS for all devices out of their heads.
53 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Jul 2009
It seems the main idea is to put up as many blocks and obstructions to possible manufacturers of generic drugs to either extend the time it takes for them to get to market or to drive the costs up as much as possible to make them less attractive.
There is a description here in an article from theage.com.au from 2004 about how it works.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/06/1091732084185.html
Onthe Wikipedia page about Evergreening it also talks about Australia and how the FTA with the US affects anti Evergreening legislation here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening
while I would agree with your point that there is no such thing as an "ideal world", and slavish obedience can be less than ideal, the reality is that society decrees that you as an individual cannot follow or ignore a law as you see fit, or if you do decide to ignore a law and you are caught then there may consequences to face.
The taking matters into your own hands might be the only way you can think of to getting others to recognise or understand a problem that you wish to change/highlight, however I think the crux of the issue is how far do you go to pursue your goal. Where does it change from merely protesting or making a point to outright criminality. I guess that some of these fellows are going to find out when if have their day in court.
I was wondering how you could get any useful information just having a postcode, your mentioning full postcodes makes much more sense now. Being from OZ our post codes encompass (what sounds like) a much larger area and in many metropolitan areas could cover many tens of thousands of people.
"And as for Lewis's note on how the SBS, Navy Seals etc. have spent most of their time sitting idle, can I ask on what evidence this is based?"
Considering the way our various Govts trumpet even the slightest "Victory" over the forces of "Evil", I would suspect if they (The Seals/SBS etc) had been involved in thwarting any smidge of an "Evil" plot it would have been splashed all over the media.
I think you overstate the similarities of the amount of control exercised by both companies just a tad. The levels of control employed by both companies are similar only in the broadest sense in that you can say they both maintain some restrictions on their products. The specifics and the amount are where the differences in philosphy arise.
How you view the argument about Apple controlling the user experience by locking down their device/computer etc as ostensibly only maintaining a user experience or just a way to milk them as often and as hard as possible depends I guess on what you think their motivations are, and/or how you think they see their users. Being a cynical bastard I lean towards the milking scenario, but I seriously doubt they are as rabidly mercenary as some anti fanbois would have you believe.
At the end of the day you make your choice for whatever reason is important to you, open, closed or something in between, personally as long as there is a clear viable choice I don’t really care.
Cade has an axe to grind necessarily. This whole episode as reported has show quite a bit of inconsistent behaviour and explanations on Googles part.
1. Google secretly helps develop a phone but denies it all the way until they finally release it to the surprise of no one.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/13/the_googlephone_exists/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/05/google_nexus_one_announcement/
2. This annoys their partners somewhat after they have outlaid a bucket of cash in promotion etc by selling their own phone in competition and then invite them to join the Google store, but claim they are not in competion.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/06/the_googlephone_store/
3. Then when things are perhaps not going so swimmingly on the phone selling front globally they decide to sell the N1 through partner retail channels.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/27/google_backtracks_on_nexus_one/
4. They then close the Google store.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/14/google_to_stop_selling_nexus_one_online/
5. Finally they close up on the whole thing and claim it was a huge sucess and now it is a developer phone.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/01/schmidt_on_nexus_one/
Now don’t get me wrong I have an HTC Desire and really like it and the whole Android platform, however I not exactly convinced by many of their explanations of the whole episode.
Cept it turned out that the huge knife the 'Bad Thing" thought it was wielding was in fact nothing more than an egg sandwich and a fevered imagination. Even after having this fact pointed out to it, "Bad Thing" has refused to accept this and is now frenziedly squashing its lunch into their chests. Everyone else looks on vaguely bemused.
however if Wikipedia wants to be taken seriously as a respected repository of knowledge, then I would argue being able to know who has written an article about something as fairly critical. Actually being able to verify that the author has expertise in the subject (not just the time to defend their article) or has no conflicts of interest etc is incredibly important to help you to judge if the information being presented is credible. www.worldbookonline.com is an example of what I mean, each entry has the contributors name and their qualifications. It may be no better written or be no more accurate than the WP version but at least you have some reassurance that the writer knows what they are talking about.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Which might be a bit harsh but I doubt that Apple or AT&T actually actively decided to deceive, it would only take one leak from any of them that they knew before hand to hang em high. A garden variety pooch screw seems much more likely. But then I could be wrong, it has been known to happen. :P
Of course this doesn't excuse the way they have handled the matter since and I suspect that the apple board must be itching to use the Kill switch on Steve's iphone. ;)
is that I actually think he is genuine about wanting to "save the children" it is just that he really is as clueless about how the intertubes works as he seems. From the 4 Corners show last night it seems he has this idea in his head that he is determined to push through against all advice to the contrary. It came across to me that he feels it doesn't matter that this system doesnt work properly and is less secure than a broken door lock held together with string but at least he is doing something to save the kids (tm).
The fact that this is so unpopular and has made him look pretty stupid means I cant see it as a vote winner for him. It does make him look amazingly pigheaded tho.
While FBs privacy practices are laughable I think they may have a point. When you sign up to FB you accept that THEY will have access to your data and you will be able to control others access to that data not some other non aligned company. While I may be happy for my data to go to Power when I sign up to their service I am also sending my friends data (who probably havn't signed up) to Power when they scrape data from my account. Not sure of the legalities in this situation so it could be that FB are doing some arse covering here in case someone complains.