How then does Amazon Silk play into this then? It downloads, renders, and caches remote pages in Amazon's infrastructure, sending only the modified and optimized results to the client. just like the service in question. Will web browsing on the Kindle Fire be illegal in Canada?
A browser is a browser is a browser. The browser in this case was built on the platform of the web. If it were a native software package would you hold a different view?
How then does one interpret the intent of a website owner with respect to user agents? Last time I checked there is no user agent verification service.
If the owner made their site for Internet Explorer, am I opening myself up for a lawsuit if I visit using any other browser? My browser of choice will not display the website in the same way the owner intended me to see it. Logic would say that I am quite vulnerable as my intent is to circumvent the original software requirements held by the author.
If you want to use the door analogy, am I breaking the law by visiting Slashdot? I didn't get explicit permission from this website's owners to access their site. I walked in on my own accord and I suspect you did as well.
Where is this "Take Me" sign?
HTTP, HTML, etc. are written as open standards so anyone can write their own implementation. Users might visit using Chrome, Firefox, Lynx, or a custom web browser that makes browsing real estate listings easier. You understand and accept that by using an open standard to deliver your content.
Nobody wants a web that is legally limited to just Internet Explorer, we want people to use open standards as open standards. Developers choose HTML and HTTP because it means anyone can use their content using their software of choice, otherwise developers would just develop native software where they have much more control of use restrictions.
When you put the content out there using defined open standards, you are saying "anyone who supports this protocol may access and use this content." It, again, is the reason why someone chooses an open standard over a proprietary solution. If you want to protect your content, put it somewhere that is not designed to be open for use by anyone.
Making it publicly readable, even by automated agents, doesn't imply that you can use what you've just read in any way you like
I have visited sites whose Terms of Service required you use Internet Explorer or Netscape. Under the precedence set here, I could just as easily be sued for using Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or even Lynx. None of those user agents preset the website as the owner intended either.
If you don't allow any user agent to use your content, the whole purpose of the web is lost. Use proprietary non-standard protocols if you want protection from use beyond your control; simple as that. Standard protocols come with the assumption that anyone can implement their own implementation of the standard, just like Rogers did here.
If you leave your house door unlocked, it is NOT okay for someone to enter your house and take what they want.
This is more like leaving your possessions on your front lawn with a "Take Me" sign attached.
The web was designed to be used by any user agent. This is something you accept by developing using web technologies. There are many other protocols in existence that are designed for proprietary systems. If you want control over your content, use the right technology for presenting your content, not the one that comes with a "Take Me" sign attached.
So keep your charge. It is your car.
But it is a good opportunity for others who want to charge their car when electricity is plentiful and sell it back at a high rate at peak times to make some extra money on the side.
There is no reason why we can't let people decide what they want to do with their vehicle. Computers make those choses really easy to implement, so that you can turn it off completely, off on certain days, or whatever works best for your car needs.
What is the difference between going to get gas the night before and entering something into your calendar the night before? The parent was talking about planning trips.
Planned trips are easy:
Spur of the moment trips are a more difficult problem to solve, granted. There are lots of potential solutions though. Maybe we'll see a network of high powered vehicles in which you can hitch up to on the highway, train style, saving your batter power to travel the last mile. Or maybe we will see power distributed through the roadways so you don't have to worry about access to power at all.
You can't say ALL CS grads are not good programmers
I believe I said nobody cares. If you can deliver results right out of college, you will be paid well for it. If you can deliver results with no degree at all, you will also be paid well for it. If you can't deliver results even with a PhD behind your name, you will not be paid well. If a CS degree is what it takes for you to deliver results, that is fine, but it is irrelevant to the business world.
That said, we appear to be in a bubble. Companies are crying for programmers and are willing to pay top dollar for ones that aren't even very good at what they do. There are people making $100K doing not much more than writing HTML with some light Javascript. I am sure there are lots and lots and lots of companies who can only afford to pay a $60K salary, but there is not much reason for programmers to be doing those jobs right now; at least if income is your primary concern.
You can't just get a CS degree and expect to make 100k.
You don't even need economics 101 to figure that one out. Not even those on track to being doctors can walk out of school into a high salary. It takes several years of working for barely minimum wage to get there. This applies doubly so in software where nobody cares what you education history is.
That said, CS grads are not your typical programmer. I wouldn't know where to find it now, but I recall seeing a study on this. The average programmer, if I recall correctly, was around 28 years of age. That gives most people at least ten years under their belt. By that time, you have specialized and can command $100K and up. I still feel $100K is a safe average to pick. That doesn't mean you are going to make $100K on day one, but you might be making $300K on day 7000 if you play your cards right.
No, I have a working cash crop farm operation too. I have never been fond of playing games, actually, so no Farmville for me.
Do you think I am low or high? I tried to pick an average. Maybe if you are telecommuting to India, you might not get paid anywhere close to that. But you can just as easily telecommute to Silicon Valley where you'll have no trouble fetching that and more.
You can't produce quality code at 80hr a week in a sustainable way.
I agree with that, but I would say that I also spend about 80 hours per week working on software. Thankfully, I am a software developer. When my coding skills start to dwindle, I can hop over to the design side and work on that until those skills start to decline. Any remaining time I wish to work can be spent communicating with others involved in the project. In my spare time, I work on my farm.
40+ hours per week is a lot to be doing the same thing because of the phenomena you note, but it is nothing at all if you know how to manage yourself properly and mix things up.
Lots of telecommuting jobs are going to be tech-related in nature. $100,000 per year for a 40-hour per week programmer is a reasonable salary in today's market. At that same rate working one hour per day, that works out to about $17,500. Only a couple thousand short of the average income in my locality. You are not going to have all of the luxuries in life with that kind of income, but you'll have no trouble living.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?
