I use FedEx over UPS anytime I can. Unfortunately, sometimes things get sent by whoever the seller decides to use and that can mean needing to keep an eye out for a UPS truck.
Understand. I was actually making a comic reference to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=148dowDhkVY
Point 2 will bring it back to point 1. Not as a direct point of sale, but as a brand awareness tool. When you see an add for a drink, it is not ment that you imediatly go to the store and buy that drink. It is that you see the brand in the store and recognize it. As it is something familiar, you wil be more likely to buy it.
Certainly, but that doesn't mean they will buy advertising placements instead of just using the interactive capabilities.
Data mining and intercepting bad company experiences and "making good" on them. For example, we had something delivered via UPS. The driver left it on our front step, didn't ring the doorbell, and just left. It sat out there for hours before we realized it was there. The package could have easily been stolen during that time and neither UPS nor I would have known until it was much too late. We complained on Twitter and UPS contacted us in an attempt to find out what went wrong and how they could improve their policies.
I think this is the real usefulness for companies on social media. Spot bad experiences, help minimize bad PR by helping those customers, and minimize future bad PR by fixing those problems before more customers are affected.
Should have used FedEx.
Seriously, I agree with you. The ability to learn about and fix problems can be a powerful tool to build customer good well and retention. Social media can supply a vast amount of near real time feedback on who you are perceived as well as alert you to bad (and good) customer experiences.
1.) Social media advertising isn't as effective as advertisers hoped.
2.) Social media can be mined for data about your products, what people think of them, and overall opinions about your company. It is also a tool for engaging with customers.
Point 2 is much more useful to companies that 1; which means the real money in Twitter et. al. is data mining, not advertising.
Statistics is indeed quite important, and whether AP CS or AP Statistics is a more useful use of a high-school student's time is a useful question (assuming they have to choose, which maybe they don't?). But AP Statistics is not teaching computational thinking; it's teaching statistical thinking, which is not the same!
While I agree statistical think is different than computational thinking, to answer your question I think it is a better use of a students time to teach statistics. Properly taught, it teaches you to think about how to formulate a question, what data you need and how to analyze it. In short, it is as much about the problem as the answer.
Computational thinking, or to use an older term, procedural literacy, is the idea that people should understand how to think in terms of processes, procedures, etc..
SNIP
Many people can't do that: even leaving aside that they don't know C or Java or Lisp, they also don't really understand what an algorithm or a computer program is conceptually, and have absolute no idea what kinds of things can be computed and what kinds can't, or which are easy or harder to compute. They lack the ability to interact meaningfully with non-code representations of computation and algorithms as well, like flow charts or (natural-language) instruction sequences.
Again, I concur with you comments. That's why code monkeys are cheap and those who can actually develop a solution valuable; and the skills you mention don't become obsolete when a new language comes along. Unfortunately, far to many people equate the ability to code with being a computer scientist or engineer. That's not to say we don't need good coders but focusing on coding and forgetting the how and why behind it is doing them a disservice. I've also found the ones who can really write elegant code generally also think conceptually as well. Maybe I was lucky but when I took CS in high school the teacher made us explain and diagram what we are trying to do before coding, and rewarded accomplishing tasks in as few lines of code as possible. A she put it, "anybody can write a program with 100 lines to accomplish what can be done in 2."
Statistical thinking is quite a bit different, more about proper use of data, quantification of evidence and uncertainty, etc. It can be complementary to computational thinking, but it isn't the same skill.
True, but faced with learning statical thinking or how to write code I think the former is more valuable.
The point of "punitive damages" is to punish the company...duh. But, how do you do that?
Just taking their money isn't enough, especially in the case of these companies. You can take astronomical amounts and it would be a drop in the bucket to them. What is $400 million to a company with billions in cash?
What you need to do is hurt them bad enough to affect their stock price. Then everyone takes notice. Board members have their positions threatened, when that happens, executives are fired, etc. THAT'S punishment.
First of all, this a settlement proposal, not damages.
Second, while punitive damages take into account the financial capability of the defendant they also have to have some reasonable relationships to the actual damages the defendants suffered as well. If we assume that the $325K represents actual damages, punitive damages of $1.3 billion might be considered legally acceptable. While that is a large number, divided by 4 defendants with very deep pockets it's still less than they pay for a few acquisitions.
Personally, I think punitive damage awards should go to paying legal fees (if that isn't already done) and into a fund to pay awards to plaintiffs that win but can't collect, such as when a company subsequently declares bankruptcy rather than simply enrich palliatives beyond actual damage they suffered.
The Supreme Court has held that "abstract ideas" can't be patented, but then has deliberately refrained from defining what an "abstract idea" is!
In the latest Alice decision, they write: "In any event, we need not labor to delimit the precisecontours of the “abstract ideas” category in this case. It is enough to recognize that there is no meaningful distinction between the concept of risk hedging in Bilski and the concept of intermediated settlement at issue here. Both are squarely within the realm of “abstract ideas” as we have used that term."
So you can't have "X", where "X" is undefined.
It would seem to me that that is the right thing to do when it is hard to clear define the line between OK and Not OK. This allows lower courts to use the ruling as guidance and as cases work their way up to SCOTUS that can provide more definitive guidelines. If they try to be more specific for such a broad area as patentable ideas they risk going to far one way or the other and later having to correct themselves if and when a good case comes up that allows them that option.
Meanwhile, AT&T says that strong net neutrality regulations will ruin their ability to squeeze more profit from the internet.
There, fixed it.
By "head exploding" I don't mean I would confuse them. I mean that it would go against what they tend to use law for. Using the law to create something open and shareable is the opposite of what they usually do. I won't go into detail here, but I've had experiences with layers that have made me realize they are not trained to think like normal conscionable people.
You are correct that lawyers are trained to think in very specific ways relative to the law. That doesn't mean that cannot think like normal conscionable people; however when they are asked to provide a legal opinion or draft a legal document they will ensure it is written to accomplish specific legal goals, which often requires very precise and specific language. Th eons I worked with certainly could step out of that mode but when we asked for legal opinions that went back to their legal training and experience. If you want some thing to be open and shareable they would write a document that accomplishes that and ensures it stays open and shareable; which requires ensuring the item couldn't be incorporated in something without sharing the results if that is what you want when you say "open and shareable."
A lawyer explained to me that that is not true. They have another option.
They can send a letter to the site offering them a $0/yr license to use the mark.
In my non-lawyer opinion, I think they could also send them a letter stating that Ikea decided not to sue them because are not infringing,
IANAL, but at that point IKEA would be saying the site is OK to continue as is because are not infringing on IKEA's trademark. Any request s after that would be superfluous since they are not infringing. At that point, the site might want to trademark their name to protect it from being grabbed by IKEA.
and advise them how to use the mark appropriately to prevent future infringement. I remember talking to a lawyer about this and he didn't like that approach, but I believe lawyers are biased on this subject. Probably because it prevents their ability to sue in the future. But that's how lawyers think
No, they actually like things to be laid out in a manner that clearly defines their position and what they want done. Unclear statements and random advice comes back to haunt the person who said them and the lil ego avoid that.
If I explained copyleft to him his head probably would have exploded.
Why? You confuse someone who is trained to use specific language with someone who is incapable of understanding broad concepts.
Nope, it isn't. It's a very legal response but 'defend' can simply mean have the other party clearly indicate they aren't you.
A C&D is a pretty typical first step when defending a trademark; and not unreasonable. That protects the brand owner while still allowing them to negotiate in an amicable manner;which is what it appears happened in this case.
I.e. every commercial says 'Coke is a trademark of Coca-Coal Industries' when they use a Coke product placement. As long as you assign who own the trademark you're using you can use it (with some legal caveats I'm sure).
Product placement is different from trademark dilution. I can put a Coke product in an add, where it is clear my product is not Coke, but can't call my product HackedCocaCola and use their bottle design and color scheme to contain my mix of Coke and flavoring and show it in the add.
You really think the federal government has the programming skill to pull off something like that? An organization run on software from the 80s?
Yes, primarily because if the decide they want to do it they have the money to do it. In addition, while there is a lot of old legacy systems running mundane tasks there are some very sophisticated computing technology and skills that can be tasked to work on the problem. This wouldn't be a run of the mill operation but rather something run out of an intelligence agency where a team could be dedicated to such a task. I am not saying they would do it; but they certainly have the capability and capacity to pull it off. The hardest part would not be the technology but figuring out how to get all the IT organizations spread across the country to agree to allow some mining software to be installed; along with the over and under on how long it would take for someone to figure out what was happening and spill the beans.
Amazon and Azure are far too expensive, unless a state-actor is willing to invest a few billions.
A state actor of sufficient size wouldn't need to rent space; they could just harness their existing resources in a pool. How much power could the US, for example, tap if every PC they control began harvesting Bitcoins? They have the network, admin rights to add programs, programming skill to develop the required programming, and would not care if the added electrical cost outweigh the value created since making money is not the goal. As an added bonus, some of the supercomputers could be added to the mix as well.
No, fuck em. If I can have a service that is waiting to pick me up, go where I want to go, more often than not in a clean and comfortable car, with a driver who (and I apologise for the next comment but you know this happens too often) understand what you are saying and is interested more in customer service.... I'll take it.
There is. It's called a car service; who has the requisite insurance and permits. You can even book in advance and if your plane is late they will adjust their schedule to meet you when you get in. Cabbies hate them as well but they play by the city rules and thus can operate. Uber appears to be trying to meet the city ordinances, which IMHO is as much about permit revenue as safety, so the may yet be able to take airport fares.
And it should be the law: If you use the word `paradigm' without knowing what the dictionary says it means, you go to jail. No exceptions. -- David Jones
