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Anyone got a links to a source that explains this? | 141 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Tim Cook to Apple investors:
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 27 2013 @ 03:01 PM EST
Newspick
Apple won't crumble. but it has peaked.
Economist, syndicated to the linked ChronicleHerald, and to my morning print edition which also carries with it a graphic, the first on this page from Asymco. I don't know enough about the role of capex in this line of business, but it's an interesting picture.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

News Picks Threads
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 27 2013 @ 04:16 PM EST
The 50 million dollar lie

If you watch Gates in his "mosquito" TED talk, you see he earnestly wants to believe in a Big Brother school system, with cameras in every classroom, every word a teach utters, every move a teacher makes under scrutiny by others. "Good" teachers, of course, embrace this, while "bad" teachers don't. It's not at all surprising to me that a commissioned study should honour his bias that there should be such good and bad teachers.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Google+ moves up to second place
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, January 27 2013 @ 08:37 PM EST
Newspick
Where is Google+'s growth coming from? It's not at the expense of Facebook or Twitter. Instead, like them, Google+ is cannibalizing smaller, local social networks. "The growth in the large, global social platforms is coming broadly at the expense of local services like MeinVz, Hyves, Copains d’Avant. Even more interestingly, we are seeing a large decline across the board in local Chinese services with Tencent Weibo, Kaixin, Sina Weibo and QZone all declining substantially, up to 57% in the case of Tencent Weibo."
I don't understand what SJVN is getting at here. Google+ was for its early period invitation only, then they amalgamated under the one sign-on for all Google services. So subsequent growth should be very visible. The China situation is odd. If I add up the numbers for Chinese services in the given graph I get 80% of global internet users are using a Chinese service. Well of course some (many?) are using more than one service, and maybe that shows a healthier ecosystem than elsewhere, but I don't suspect Google is responsible for any decline here. Adding up Google+ and Facebook users gives only 75% and we know a significant number of people use both. Google services, singly or all at once, still get turned off in China at the whim of some petty bureaucrat, and the forums are full of the kludges needed to get around this. Another factor is my Android phone came with factory rom including a suite of Google Apps and Sina Weibo, TenCent, MobileQQ, Baidu, and Youku. Why would Google be my first choice?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

DMCA, Ridiculous law, and the Constitution
Authored by: celtic_hackr on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 07:47 AM EST
Among the things I find most interesting is what I see as a law, the DMCA,
which, as near as my mind can tell prima facie Unconstitutional.

My reasoning,

1) The punishment for breaking the DMCA clearly falls into the category of
"excessive fine" and "cruel and unusual punishment", in
clear violation of the Constitution. (Amendment VIII)

2) The Library of Congress is a body of government within the Legislative Branch
of the US government, but no power in the Constitution gives them the power to
interpret the law. That power was given to the Judicial Branch of Government.
This seems to be a clear breach and an attempt to remove Constitutional review
from the Judicial Branch.
(Article III. Section 2. Clause 1.)

3) Nowhere in the Constitution does it grant the right to Congress to delegate
it's lawmaking ability. Ergo, granting to the LOC the right to change the law
every three years is Unconstitutional. (Article I. Section 1.)

Now, I am not a lawyer, and all that, perhaps someone with knowledge and
experience could jump in and tell where my weak points and strong points are in
this. Also whether I am wrong or right. I'm confused, because I don't see why no
one before has challenged this on these grounds.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Mobile Phone unlocking illegal in the US
    Authored by: complex_number on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 08:10 AM EST
    Unlocking your mobile phone now a crime

    The next step must be to make buying or importing an unlocked mobile phone into the US a Federal Crime.

    From my position (at the moment somewhere in the middle east) the US is becoming more crazy in the laws it passes. I suppose the senators and congressmen must fill their time with stuff like this instead of tackling the real issues that face the US, such as the Federal Deficit, declining competitiveness and a whole raft of others.

    For the US Networks to be able to pay their tame lawmakers to pass this law let alone for the President to enact it is just silly to us Foreigners/aliens. Many other countries have vibrant and competitive mobile phone markets without even trying to resort to laws like this.

    The phone I'm using today is unlocked. I was locked to a network but when the contract ended they unlocked it for me. I then switched to a rolling 1 month contract with another network using that phone. No quibble at all. Now, it has a Sim for the local Orange network in it. Freedom!

    So, the US (formerly known as the land of the free) is nailing itself up inside its own coffin. A truly sad state of affairs indeed.

    ---
    Ubuntu & 'apt-get' are not the answer to Life, The Universe & Everything which is of course, "42" or is it 1.618?

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    billg & The 50 million dollar lie
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 10:24 AM EST
    [.PDF] http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s8863.pdf

    explains De Moivre’s equation

    The Greek letter s, with no subscript, represents a measure of the variability of a data set (its standard deviation). So if we measure, for example, the heights of, say, 1000 students at a particular high school, we might find that the average height is 67 inches, but heights mig ht range from perhaps as little as 55 inches to as much as 80 inches. A number that characterizes this variation is the standard deviation. Under normal circumstances we would find that about two-thir ds of all children in the sample would be within one standard deviation of the average. But now suppose we randomly grouped the 1000 children into 10 groups of 100 and calculated the average within each group. The variation of these 10 averages would likely be much smaller than s because it is likely that a very tall person in the group would be counterbalanced by a shorter person. De Moivre showed a relationship between the variability in the original data and the variability in the averages. He also showed how one could calculate the variability of the averages ( sx¯) by simply dividing the original variability by the square root of the number of individuals (n) that were combined to calculate the averages. And so the variability of the average of groups of 100 would be one-tenth that of the original group. Similarly, if we wanted to reduce the variability in half, we would need groups of four; to cut it to onefifth we would need groups of 25, and so forth. That is the idea behind De Moivre’s equation.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Newegg ROCKS!
    Authored by: OpenSourceFTW on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 11:05 AM EST
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/0 1/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/
    < br> Newegg is my favorite place to buy computer parts. Their prices are awesome (most places can't beat it, except maybe Amazon sometimes), their shipping is blazing fast (and cheap XD, often free), and their customer service is great. Even when I don't buy from them, I still price it on their site, then check the reviews there. I built a computer some time ago using nothing but parts from them, and it was an absolute steal. Highly, HIGHLY recommend them. And now they invalidate a stupid patent. I respect them even more now. PJ, trust me, buy from them, you will like it.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    • Newegg ROCKS! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 12:16 PM EST
    • Newegg ROCKS! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 12:52 PM EST
    Anyone got a links to a source that explains this?
    Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 01:24 PM EST
    Quote:[PJ: What if it's true that the Republicans tried to
    steal the election by a tech sneak trick in Ohio but were
    thwarted by Anonymous, for example, as some reports alleged?

    Anyone got a links to a source that explains this?

    ---
    RMS: The 4 Freedoms
    0 run the program for any purpose
    1 study the source code and change it
    2 make copies and distribute them
    3 publish modified versions

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Facebook’s privacy payout: how you’ll get $10, $5 — or nothing
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 03:28 PM EST
    So give it all to the EFF, EFF sues Facebook again. Give it all the the EFF, EFF
    sues Facebook again. Give it all the the EFF, EFF sues Facebook again... etc.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    How Math Could Improve Life for Nearly 6 Million With Parkinson's
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 05:06 PM EST

    Now that's neat. My wife's father suffered from Parkinson's in his last years.
    Anything that can help even in the slightest is worthwhile.

    That it's math makes it neat.

    Wayne
    http://madhatter.ca

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

    Yahoo, Like Google, Demands Warrants for User E-Mail
    Authored by: albert on Monday, January 28 2013 @ 07:04 PM EST
    Link

    "The nation’s other major consumer-facing e-mail provider — Microsoft — which markets the Hotmail and Outlook brands, declined comment for this story."

    I wouldn't expect one, either. When has MS ever stood on principle for anything? The company that created special software for law enforcement agencies to help them search MS databases.

    [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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