At TechCrunch, Jolla’s CEO Marc Dillon explains why his company will focus on China, Finland, and the rest of Europe first, ignoring the US. “The US market is not on the radar as yet, as he says the patent landscape there ‘raises a barrier’ of entry to newcomers (he’s especially critical of overly aggressive use of design patents).” Considering the patent mess in the US is only getting worse, expect to see more of this in the future. Jolla is making a wise decision by ignoring the US – as a young technology company, you’re far better off focusing your attention elsewhere.
I thought it may happen, and US should quickly revise their absurd patent system if they want not to slow down technologically by competition from other countries. I would make the same decision as Joola’s CEO if needed.
Won’t happen and here is why…the USA has the guns. I’m sure some will think I’m trolling, others that I am making a joke, but remember the words of Marine General Smedley Butler:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
Only now instead of just one prong, the military, you have two, the military and the megacorps. Look at how many horrible extensions to copyrights and patents have been passed all over the world…were the people of those countries asking for MORE restrictions? longer times? Nope it was bribery, plain and simple. America can get away with this because it can, it has some of the largest corps including THE largest corp, Apple, who tried to do what with Android again? Oh yeah bury it in patent lawsuits.
Things are the way they are because there are a few at the top that make out like Gods because of the status quo, think they want actual free markets? Actual competition? Of course not which is why patents and copyrights are minefields, its so they can set up toll booths for safe passage.
I really wish I could offer the world hope for a better future, i really do but I truly believe the future is…game consoles. Devices like tablets and phones and laptops, all as locked down as any game console and with such a minefield of copyrights and patents that is all we’ll have. It’ll be a handful of corps controlling all the ISPs, a handful controlling the OEMs, it’ll keep consolidating and growing that the only ones that will be able to make squat without a decade in court will be the corps and those that sell out to the corps, we’ll look back at being able to sell to countries without minefields as a bygone age. It’ll be sad but that’s where we are heading folks, that is where we are heading.
I’m nit picking but I’m pretty sure Apple is not the *largest* company.
It’s kind of funny that capitalism has the same problem as communism (or plan economy, to be exact): too many greedy bastards and not enough true believers.
Perhaps but on the other hand, the world at large is getting really fed up with the U.S steamrolling them.
Also, good luck implementing all these controls in corrupt 3rd world countries. For example, I can still go out and buy pirated software in a mall if I so desire. Heck, when I purchased an SD card a month ago the shop asked if I wanted some music (pirated, of course) with it.
Depends on your definition of “largest”.
But for market capitalization, it is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_capital…
Did you read that?
“The following is a list of publicly traded companies having the greatest market capitalization”
A good translation would be “The following is a list of companies on the the stock exchange with a large amount of stock for sale”
There are a ton of companies that are not on the stock exchange, and for that matter not in the U.S.
This is similar to the list of the richest people in the world magazines like to put out. What people don’t know is you practically have to volunteer for that.
Yes, it depends on your definition of “largest”. Publicly traded companies are pretty much the only ones you could include on a list of market capitalization with any accuracy. So when someone says “the largest” market capitalization is one thing they could mean, in which case Apple would be the largest. If they meant in terms of revenue or profit or dividends payed out, or number of employees, or number of private jets, then they would be wrong. When someone makes such an arbitrary and ill defined statement, its much more difficult to prove them wrong. I, for one, just wouldn’t try to without clarifying exactly what I think they meant in context of the overall statement. Otherwise it will end in a pointless argument. Although, this exchange between us is kind of pointless too. Good job.
You should have also noticed that the list is not restricted to companies listed on United States Stock Exchanges.
I’m pretty sure that IBM, for example, is a lot larger than Apple, at least in any way that’s meaningful.
Not anymore. After SOPA fiasco, the pressure on the government increased. There is still tons of corruption, but the war for open computing is only beginning.
Firstly, I’m not sure the the US is going to suffer too much in not having a Facebook phone.
Secondly, while this may be cause for alarm for some in the US, the companies that lobby for the current screwed-up system are probably pretty happy about it. Keeping competition out of the market was their goal to begin with.
Lastly, I don’t mean to say that the US patent system is a good one, but doing business in countries with weak IP law carries its own set of risks.
What makes it a Facebook-phone? The fact that there’s built-in support for Facebook? Well, gee, I’ve got this Android – tablet, this Android – phone, Windows 8 – laptop, Nokia N900 and so on and so forth that all do the same thing…
Most of the software – stack in use is already F/OSS, so there’s not really much to lose there.
Did you read the article? He talks specifically about creating a phone for facebook. So the collaboration with facebook is what would make it a facebook-phone.
Did you read the article? He talks specifically about creating a phone for facebook. So the collaboration with facebook is what would make it a facebook-phone. [/q]
Did you read the article? He basically says that they want to license out the OS to companies that don’t have the skillset to create their own phones, so if Facebook wanted to create their own phone, they could have SailfishOS as the base. Makes logical sense to me. SailfishOS itself and the Jolla Phone isn’t going to be a ‘Facebook’ phone.
Of course in my mind, having a Facebook phone would be just as horrible as having a Google (Android) phone.. but to each his own..
It’s actually a rather brilliant idea. Think back to some hardware platforms, specifically for Arcades. Perhaps if Atari had licensed out their Jaguar Arcade platform to more video game companies, they’d still be around.
That’s what I’d equate this to, having a standard board (the hardware) the operating system (that talks to the hardware) with custom user end experience for whomever wants one. I’m hoping for an OSNews phone…
Did you read the article? He basically says that they want to license out the OS to companies that don’t have the skillset to create their own phones, so if Facebook wanted to create their own phone, they could have SailfishOS as the base. Makes logical sense to me. SailfishOS itself and the Jolla Phone isn’t going to be a ‘Facebook’ phone. [/q]
Yes? That’s exactly what I was referring to.
Edited 2013-03-03 21:52 UTC
Then congratulations, sir: you’ve successfully made a mountain out of a mole hill.
Then congratulations, sir: you’ve successfully made a mountain out of a mole hill. [/q]
Err.. What the hell are you talking about?
The hypothetical facebook-phone mentioned by OP would be a facebook-phone because it would be created in collaboration with facebook. I don’t see how that is “making a mountain out of a mole hill” so please explain. But perhaps you’re just trolling.
Edited 2013-03-04 13:54 UTC
The primary focus of Jolla is to create a Jolla branded phone. That phone will not be sold in the US for “patent reasons”.
The facebook phone is a hypothetical product that jolla would design under contract for facebook. The distribution for that phone is unknown as its a hypothetical product.
It sounds like you got the two confused in your first post, or assumed that facebook would enter into a relationship with jolla design a phone and they not release it into the US market because of jolla’s patent concerns.
The post I cited was about the hypothetical facebook-phone mentioned by Jolla’s CEO in the article, so of course I was talking about that (and not Sailfish OS based phones in general). I hope this clears up any confusion.
Well, in that case I think we would all agree.
No one will suffer too much from not having a completely hypothetical facebook phone.
1) This isn’t about a Facebook phone.
2) This isn’t about making the U.S. suffer.
Except the countries we are talking about, save China, does not have weak IP laws. The fact the they are not retarded does not make them weak.
Edited 2013-03-04 02:56 UTC
Yes. Focusing on Europe is quite wise as they don’t have things remotely analogous to design patents
oh
wait
http://www.osnews.com/story/25056/The_Community_Design_and_you_Thou…
trollolol
That’s only because the law makers think the US is still number 1. As more investment happens in Europe and other countries, they’ll get more power to tell the US lobbyists to go screw themselves.
Well, we can hope.
During the cold war, there was a tendency for people in the US to gloss over anything negative about their own country by simply pointing that things were worse in the USSR. One thousand people starve to death in the US in one winter? Well that’s OK, as long you could you show that TEN thousand starved in the USSR during that same winter.
Today, the US fills the same role for the EU. Pervasive political corruption as the norm, systematic abuse of the patent system, and anti-trust legislation used as a thinly-veiled tax on non-EU companies? That’s OK, just as long as things are worse in the US.
Anonymous down-mod with no replies? Thank you for validating my point.
Not directly related to the topic title, but it was mentioned in the linked article, so I don’t think I’m being off-topic.
I’m probably the only one who cringes whenever a new platform mentions they’ll be including Android compatibility.
Have they even taken a look at what’s in the Play Store? Yeah sure, you get a few “now with swanky new Holo facelift” apps coming out each week (some quite good, I must say, like Pocket Casts) but the majority of the marketplace is polluted with crap “casual” games or “utility” apps that want to take over your device.
I’m looking at the app drawer on my Nexus 7 right now and it’s basically got 2 pages of apps I’d consider useful. That’s about 60 apps. Multiply that number by 100 and you’ll have 6000, which should cover most use case scenarios, provided there’s a quality app for each use case. Why not concentrate on giving us 6000 (or even 600 to start with) high quality, secure, native apps instead of a compatibility “layer” offering access to a cesspool of 700,000 (or whatever number Google says) crapsicle apps?
Edited 2013-03-03 15:25 UTC
You just said it yourself: a whole boatload of apps immediately available vs. a handful of apps with a small trickle of them over time.
Sure, but you could also make a business case for NOT having 700k of apps that are basically worthless.
I think you massively underestimate the effort to write and maintain 6000 high quality apps. And yes, many people want those crappy casual games too.
Depends, would they allow you to control the app’s permissions so that they can’t read your phone’s IMEI number or connect to the internet if it’s not required?
If they did then it’d negate many of the problems with the Play Store and become preferable to an official android product.
As many of us predicted – this will happen more and more – and things will be forced to change when the US citizens see their choice and costs becoming much further behind the rest of the world because their patent and wider legal system holds them back .. they will find that the powerful incumbents no longer provide them with best value and innovation.
It is a powerful moment when a US citizen says “hey, why I can’t have one of the European things, Mr President, and why is my widget X twice the price Europeans are paying?” Mr President could only answer “because our patent and industrial legal framework is broken and no longer services its intended purpose”
Edited 2013-03-03 15:23 UTC
Keep in mind that the corporate powers that be own the mainstream media in the US. (Literally, even, above the table.)
And that that several US ISPs (most of which have connections to the content industry) have implemented six strikes on their own, and have monopolies on anything faster than dialup in many markets.
And, we already get propaganda through the mainstream media about how things in Europe are far, far worse than here. (Primarily about healthcare, but still…)
I wouldn’t be surprised if our corporate masters won’t ALLOW us to know that things are better in Europe with cell phones, just like they don’t allow us to know that about healthcare (and punish the ones that do know it).
Basically, rabid corporatism is indistinguishable from Soviet-style communism, as far as the propaganda goes, and it may even be WORSE than Soviet-style communism as far as quality of life goes (because the Soviet system at least had to pretend to be fair, the corporatist system can say, “screw you, I’ve got mine”).
So, don’t expect improvement to come from within.
Edited 2013-03-03 16:14 UTC
Yes.
Healthcare is better in us, that’s for shure.
If anyone get sick in denmark, or get their finger cut off in an accident. Then we just call the ambulance.
No one get’s to pay anything for the finger to get sewn back on, as we allready have payed through taxes.
No one need to buy health insurance, as the state takes care of that for us. We just pay more tax, that’s the difference.
There is no road tax, except when we cross the biggest bridge. We do not pay to borrow books at the library.
If we have no job, we can get money from the state, indefinetely. We just have to show that we have applied for two jobs every week.
So yes…. Things are fare more better in Usa. That’s for shure. My benefits in denmark makes me so much want to live in another country.
We’ve been told that in countries with socialized healthcare, there’s a massive shortage of doctors, long waiting lists, and “death panels” that determine whether it’s economically sound to continue treatment of a severely ill patient.
Never mind that they’re actually describing the US – in some areas, most doctors refuse new patients, you might have a shorter waiting list for a procedure but you have a much longer waiting period for the procedure to be APPROVED before you can get on the list, and death panels definitely exist in our corporate healthcare system.
And, while we do have toll roads in the US, we pay very little tax on our fuel, and very little tax on cars. Most road funds come from the general fund… but nowhere near enough does, which means that in many areas, the roads are decaying.
And, unemployment compensation exists in the US as well, but it’s considered to be one of the lowest things you can do as a person to take it (and the systems are designed very poorly) – the only lower things you can do, as far as public opinion is concerned, tend to be murder, rape of an adult, taking money to assist with childcare, and rape of a child, in the order going from less bad to more bad.
Edited 2013-03-03 17:52 UTC
You have a very interesting view of Unemployment Insurance in the US. Since the UI fund is explicitly paid into by business for that purpose, there is no shame at all in using those funds if needed.
I was laid off from my airline IT job as a direct result of 9/11, and I had no qualms at all about taking unemployment until I found work again. That is what those funds are intended for, and they can be used for no other purpose.
I don’t have that opinion, but it’s a widely held sentiment in the US.
Really? You can speak for all of us?
I got laid off from my IT job last year. I was on unemployment for nearly a year before I found a job in my crappy area (seriously, job hunting in a small town miles from the nearest big one sucks). I had 0 problems accepting unemployment and no one that I know views it as anything but a necessary system there to help you when you need it. The only ill thoughts sent in that direction are towards the lazy lay-abouts that abuse the handout system.
Oh my God, this is hilarious
No.
Sure, there are long waiting lists sometimes but it’s not like the U.S system doesn’t have them.
Ok, wait, hold on. Seriously???
Death Panels?? For real?
Are you sure you’re not living in North Korea? Did the Berlin wall just relocate to the Canada/U.S border?
Edited 2013-03-04 03:04 UTC
I’m pretty sure I am living in North Korea.
There’s very little difference between radical Corporatism and radical Communism.
The US is a radical Corporatist state.
I still have my doubts.
There a lot of rubbish said about the NHS in the USA.
They even claimed that Stephen Hawking would be dead if he was being taken care of by the NHS.
Hawking actually called bullshit himself on it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6017878/…
project 2501,
“Mr President could only answer ‘because our patent and industrial legal framework is broken and no longer services its intended purpose’ ”
This is what the whitehouse has already said on the matter:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/direct-patent-office-cease…
In any case it would be up to congress and not the president.
Edited 2013-03-03 16:18 UTC
smartphones are becoming a cheap commodity that everyone everywhere purchases, not a luxury item for those in rich countries. The expensive phones for the US will be expensive anyway so paying for patent protection will not make much of a difference.
The USPTO is a very inefficient system, it serves to regulate innovation rather than openly embrace it. Newcomers are especially burdened by it. For a small software R&D company to take the patent system seriously mandates that it focuses a tremendous amount of energy on what’s already been patented and leaves little time for actually developing things, which is what we really want to be focusing on. A company that does take the patents seriously will quickly find that engineers unknowingly implement patented algorithms all the time. The patent-conscious company will have to pay royalties to cover their own work, drop patented features all together, sufficiently mutate the engineer’s algorithms until they are deemed not to infringe, or knowingly infringe and risk triple damages. None of these results are good for a small company, which is why most small US companies find the best approach is just to ignore the patent system all together and fly under the radar until they’re sued.
So, as ano69 says, it makes a lot of sense for new technology companies to avoid the US market (not helpful for those of us who live here though).
But at the same time, the traits that make the patent system so poor are very useful at protecting the incumbents who get to use the system as a weapon against competitors. As vocivus stated, the patent system has a lot of weight behind it that caused it to become exactly what it is today. Even if we can collectively recognize it for the disaster that it is, it’s not going to be fixed as long as the powerful corporations pushing for it continue to push. In their eyes the US patent system had a favorable outcome in eliminating Jolla from the US market.
Making real meaningful changes within the USPTO is going to need a lot more worldwide market pressure.
That’s a good move for Jolla. They need to get on their feet first, instead of dealing with patent trolls and racketeers like Apple, MS and co.
That said, probably one still will be able to buy their handsets through some on-line retailers, not unlike it happened with Nokia N9 which wasn’t distributed in US either. The only downside with that is weaker or non existent warranty.
Dude, importing those phones for yourself would obviously make you an anti-american terrorist. Prepare for Guantanamo.
We don’t stand a chance in the US so we’ll claim the broken patent system is the reason and not even try.
They do not stand a chance indeed!
Look at the players there (and everywhere) – do you see any with less than several billions in profit and with a huge patent portfolio?
Do you honestly feel a tiny Finnish company could stand any chance?
Do you think Steve Jobs and Apple would have succeeded – at all or as much as they had – in the current patent climate in USA? Or anyone else for that matter?
If any of your answers to the questions above is “yes”, kindly pass whatever you’re smoking.
All the patent system in the USA does now is to maintain the big names on top, whether they’re technology, pharma or who knows what.
Then how do small start-ups like Google, Ouya, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. succeed without having pre-existing patent portfolios?
Conversely why are companies with said “multi-billion dollar” patent portfolios (HP, etc.) failing at the same time?
While I agree that the patent system is broken it doesn’t keep people from trying (and succeeding in some cases). In this case it’s just an excuse. Puff.
bentoo,
“Then how do small start-ups like Google, Ouya, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. succeed without having pre-existing patent portfolios?”
“Conversely why are companies with said ‘multi-billion dollar’ patent portfolios (HP, etc.) failing at the same time?”
There are clearly many factors other than patents at work when it comes to success. There’s timing, market saturation, leadership, public image, investors, technical capabilities, legal capabilities, just to name a few. As convenient as it is to look at them in general isolation, it’s really the aggregation of all factors which decides a company’s fate.
If we really do want to take a look at isolated factors in any meaningful way, we need to be taking representative samples and not just assuming those at the very top are the only ones that matter.
To answer your first question a bit more directly, my own opinion is that they hit good timing. Their respective markets were young with little competition and enormous growth opportunities. Hypothetically, I think every one of them would be harder pressed to succeed under a mature market which is already well entrenched.
BTW Cuil is a very interesting case study on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuil
In theory, nascent markets will paint the patent system in the most favorable light because everyone gets to start anew and startups are much less likely to find themselves embroiled in turf wars with established players. Now let’s turn your question around and ask if any of these companies needed patents to reach success? If not, then maybe we need to rethink the patent system’s role as a driver for innovation.
@alfman
Agreed. But these and many others have succeeded despite the patent system which the previous post inferred was impossible. Again, in Jolla’s case, blaming the patent system is just an excuse for not having a marketable product.
Things like this are, unfortunately, exactly what it will take for people to start opening their eyes and make changes to the system. The more people that shun the U.S. (and I am a U.S. citizen) due to patent-related bullshit, the better. We need patent reform, and it will not happen any other way. Go Jolla… now let’s watch as they release the floodgates and more companies admit that this is the reason they choose to avoid the U.S.
This could lead to good things in the future… but as slow as the U.S. is at figuring anything at all out (just look at hemp and its cousin), I won’t expecting anything of real significance for many years…
I’m still waiting for US to switch to the metric system proper…
We probably will after the UK does. Both countries still use miles for distance on roadsways and MPH to measure road speeds.
Isn’t UK switching to it as part of EU?
It’s an island, they have an island mentality.
They drive on the left side of the road and still have their own currency.
If they switch to the metric system they will be the last to do so.
The metric system is the better system, but it will be very hard to switch for people personally. I know how much a mile, feet and inch are in the metric system, but I have no feeling with them. If something is 32 inches I have to mentally convert it to centimeters, while someone who is used to work with feet ‘n’ inches can guess the length by feeling.
Britain switched decades ago. The USA s the only non-metric country in the world.
Apparently the metric system was allowed to be used since 1864 in the UK, but the empirical system is still used a lot. I suspect the common citizen will use feet and inches before meters, primarily because they know by feeling how long these are.
In The Netherlands people still use the “pond” (pound), which is 500 grams, while it was dropped in 1869 and again officially canned in 1937.
(I’m cheating with Wikipedia)
It’s one thing to switch systems, but it’s another to get the population to accept it and use it.
We switched from guilders to euro’s in 2002, but I’m still doing the mental calculation to convert back to guilders. I don’t really have to, but if we were to switch from meters to yards I MUST convert them back to meters, because I would have no idea mentally how much x yards is. If my GPS unit says to take a turn in 300 meters I can instantly judge it. I don’t think I would ever be able to do so with yards or feet.
(Pedantry ahoy!) Formal metrication started in Britain in 1969, and the alternate system is called Imperial. Though I suppose both systems are inherently empirical …
You’d do OK as a yard is around 90cm. People tend to use the words interchangeably to describe the same distances.
It’s mixed. I was never taught Imperial (that’s the correct name) at school. We were taught in metric. Most products are now sold in metric units. Baby’s when they are born are weighed in metric (then everyone goes crazy trying to work out the Imperial.) Shoes are sold in Imperial, clothes are a mixed bag, but most trousers quote both inches and cm’s for waist size. We still talk about “pints” when referring to drinking Beer and buying Milk. Most people weigh themselves in Stones and pounds (which is what the US system is kind of based on, except then don’t use the Stones.) Most measure height in Feet and Inches.
Did you have a typical education?
Because I used to watch a lot of English tv and only recently have I noticed metric units popping up, which each time surprises me.
To me it seemed imperial (thanks for the correction) was always the primary system of the English and metric a very recent alternate.
Edited 2013-03-04 16:51 UTC
Fairly. I left school in 1990. No one taught us imperial directly. Any imperial we knew was either via our parents or from the fact that society in general was still using Imperial.
I think it depends on the people depicted. Older generation (45+) still learnt the old system mainly. They tend to also be stubborn about the situation. We always used Metric because it’s a heck of a lot simpler. Do you know how many Chains there are in a Furlong? Me neither.
Yes. But in schools, it was pushed hard. I think it was originally because of the European directive, but it was also seen as an advantage to move away from the completely random and chaotic past systems.
People tend to know feet and inches (12 inches = 1 foot, but not how many feet there are in a mile, for example? No idea), probably have a vague understanding of pounds and ounces (apparently, 16 Ounces to 1 pound – I had to look that one up! But even on TV, it’s normally grammes and kilos and we never, ever use fluid ounces like the US, always Litres and Millilitres or “pints”.) And like I said, personal weight is always in stones and pounds(14 pounds = 1 stone.)
But I imagine a lot of books and documentation and as mentioned your parents, The Elders and a large part of society in general work with imperial. Doesn’t that become confusing at times?
I’ve read up on ancient units and it was interesting to learn that the value of these units could differ from city and region and of course they were redefined a few times during history.
Even in our small county of The Netherlands different cities had different times (not zones, actual cities using different times) and our German neighbors set that straight during the WW2 occupation.
It’s almost odd something like the metric system wasn’t introduced earlier.
No, because any book produced since the late 70’s has either both Metric and Imperial, or just Metric. As a test, I just looked at 4 or 5 cookery books in the Kitchen. All of them give the Metric first, 2 out of the five don’t give the Imperial at all. All canned/bagged/bottled products only give metric (and many are designed to be “European” with the ingredients/contents written in a number of languages.) The only products we tend to get Imperial style units on now are designed for the US market as well (and their weights and measures are similarly named, but not exactly the same on all counts!)
I guess it’s kind of like Switzerland speaking 4 different languages, etc. In the UK we have 3 Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish in parts of Northern Ireland and Gaelic in Scotland, and well, one more if you count revived Cornish) as well as English, but they are very specific to regions. But England is very monolingual. We don’t really understand how speaking so many regional languages works.
Railways had long fixed that for the UK.
Decimalisation was quite hard enough to bring to the UK. LOL!
This has been an eye opener for me and I’m convinced many Dutch think the English are still in to inches.
Problem is the US. This makes it harder to see. Also, a lot of idiomatic phrases make it seem more used, e.g. “Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile!” Plus also, we still measure distance in Miles and drink Pints of lager, so travelling around the UK will make it seem more extreme than it really is. If the government made a real effort, we could be completely Metric in 10 – 15 years. It wouldn’t take all that much.
In Dutch it’s: give them a finger and they’ll take your whole hand.
In Polish also. And I distinctly remember the saying being used by a German soldier, when talking about the lead character (a Jew…) in “The Pianist” (Roman PolaÅ„ski film from a decade ago, really worth seeing)
No longer. Until last decade there was a formal (albeit ignored) commitment to switch, recognised by both the UK and the EU. However since then various Uk governments have shut down the various bodies intended to complete the process, and the EU has formally announced that it no longer considers the UK’s commitment to go full metric as relevant.
There was a ruling a few years ago that stated that merchants could list prices exclusively in imperial, so long as they were weighed and sold on metric scales.
Its actually still illegal to put up road signs in km, or serve draught beer in litres. People get raided by the police for the later.
Its generally seen as a bad state of affairs, which confused me. Nations like the Netherlands which are taught two languages are seen as linguistically progressive. Why is knowing two measurement systems not seen as mathematically progressive?
It’s actually four languages: Dutch, English, French, and German. Or, if you go to Latin/Greek school like I did, you also get Latin and Greek.
French and German are only taught for a short while, after that you can drop them in favor of other classes. Most people are pretty crap at French and German.
I had French for a few years, but we never got to the past tense for example. It was all basic stuff and I have forgotten most. My pronunciation is pretty good so I can still fool people I can speak French. I even fooled some real French, which is a bad idea because they’ll start to talk French very fast assuming I understand it.
The other poster mentioned learning 2 systems. I don’t think it’s a good idea, because the metric system is logical, easy and everybody knows it. Why learn a second system nobody uses and is very difficult to use? If I mention any empirical unit the first thing people will ask me is to translate it in to metric.
It has its charm I guess, but nobody has any feeling with it, nor does anyone use it.
Well, we do use it when it comes to computer screens. But when someone says he has a 22″ screen and you have a 21″ you know his is bigger, but you have no idea how much or how big your screen is in centimeters.
A while ago someone told me she has a 30″ screen and I thought, WOW! That’s big! How big? I have no idea.
And inches for screens are also informal, at manufacturing everything is done in metric anyway.
Like naming of floppies …the “3.5” and “5.25” inches bays aren’t precisely of that dimension, they are actually in the closest metric size.
So….never?
When talking such huge distances as miles, I don’t see the metric system’s primary advantage (easy conversion between metric units) as too much of a big deal… I mean, when you’re talking 25 miles, who gives a damn how many feet or inches that is? Similarly, I couldn’t care less how many of a similar unit that would be with the same distance in the metric system…
Of course, there are some situations where this is very useful, especially with similar units and when measuring volume and area (and probably some others). But IMO metric’s advantages are not as amazing as they’re made out to be. I will continue to use whatever is common myself, a mix of both. But admittedly I do mostly use the customary system, but also with some imperial pints of beer mixed in.
If you want to use metric exclusively, have at it. No one’s taking it away from you.
Here’s a simple example of how much easier metric is.
I want to truck some barrels of water. How many barrels can my truck hold?
Metric: truck capacity one tonne. Water density 1kg/litre. Barrel capacity 200 litres.
Answer 5 drums.
You simply fill five barrels and put them on the truck.
USA: truck capacity 2204 lbs. Water density 8.34 lbs/gallon. US fluid barrel capacity 31.5 gallons.
Answer: 2204/(8.34*31.5) = 8.39 barrels.
You need a calculator. A table of US weights and measures and a way of accurately measuring the water.
Edited 2013-03-04 10:56 UTC
This may be the first time ever I agree with anything you have ever written.
Metric is often far simpler, but that was a forced example.
Truck capacity 1 ton = 2,000lb. Water density 1pt/1lb. Truck capacity 2,000pts.
You still have to convert pints to barrels – unless you are transporting milk.
If you do something more complicated such as designing an aircraft the US system becomes nightmarish. How many ounces does a square foot of 16 gauge aluminium weigh? What is the density of air in lbs per cubic yard at -32 Fahrenheit? etc etc
One of my as biochemical engineering lecturers worked in the USA for 20 years. He told me they did all their design calculations in SI units (metric) and converted to US units afterwards. To do otherwise was far too difficult.
At least it’s based on, you know, science.
http://www.listsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/scientists-are…
Kilometers does not sound as romantic as miles!
It does if you’re French. Kee-lomm-ee-terz!
You’re comparing basic right and wrong to unit of measurement preference. Just because the metric system is not the officially-recognized government standard doesn’t mean you can’t use it yourself. On the other hand, these patents seriously limit startup companies from succeeding. There is a big difference there.
I think there are far more important issues than measurement units; if you want to play at that game of trying to enforce better standards onto people, why not push for everyone to switch to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard? I have (using it since early December last year), it’s a hell of a lot better than the standard layout, and it’s even less heard of than the metric system…
But, if you are only hinting that the U.S. government is slow as all hell at getting anything done, then I fully agree with you. I even hinted at that at the end of my previous post.
Yes, my point was the slowness of positive changes.
It’s debatable if Dvorak would be better …first, the research comparing it with QWERTY (when they have the same amount of training and motivation) is inconclusive. Secondly (and more importantly), Dvorak is a group of language-specific layouts – and that simply doesn’t fit well with our interconnected global village of today, it’s horrible in the context of the common metric system. Dvorak(s) would bring more chaos when you’re visiting a different country and such.
My first language doesn’t even have a settled Dvorak layout yet. My second language has… two different ones.
Hi,
If they were smart, they wouldn’t sell anything in the US, but would apply for US patents for anything and everything (e.g. to build up a set of patents for defensive purposes in case they want to bother with the US in future).
– Brendan
They should be smart not to engage in such idiocy and rather spend their efforts on innovation.
Edited 2013-03-04 04:25 UTC
Hi,
In that case, some US company will steal their ideas, make competing products and apply for US patents based on stolen ideas.
Only stupid people think that ignoring a problem makes the problem go away.
– Brendan
Prior art?
I can completely understand Jolla’s reasoning on avoiding the US market. Just sucks to be a Canadian fed up with the current mobile landscape (because let’s face it, if the US isn’t getting it, neither are we).
I can understand the need to start small and grow the market as you refine your product such that most of the problems are fixed by the time your are at the global stage. It also makes sense to start in a place where you understand the market.
However, ignoring the US market completely would be a bad move. Very reminiscent of Nokia’s treatment of the US market. I think its lack of engagement in the US market contributed to its dramatic decline. Being the worlds largest single economy means that its media reaches much farther than one might expect. Its ability to market products is unmatched. By not having that market interested in your products, you get crushed by the wave of reporting, advertising and general discussion of the products that are interested in the US market.
I don’t know if I’d say the lack of US interest is what brought Nokia’s downfall, though it certainly didn’t help. I think it was more they didn’t hold on to the international markets they had by having a compelling offering, which led to Android and iOS devices stepping in.
I think the main difference between a low end symbian device and a low end android device is that a low end android device is an android device which is in some way a validation of their economic status through the advertising and general buzz. Functionally, I don’t think there were many differences.
I don’t have high hopes for Jolla. I think at some point Nokia is going to point at them and say “thats why we went with windows phone”, which is really sad because it (sailfish/mer/meego) is a great operating system which never had a chance due to business reasons rather than technical ones.
Meego wasn’t that great. It’s what you hear from its (anti-new-Nokia) fanclub; it will be like Amiga worship…
OTOH: http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-n9-2-en.shtml
PS. NVM functionality, Android handset is much more pleasant to use than a Symbian one. Which also often means you actually use its functionality more.
Edited 2013-03-10 23:50 UTC
Absolutely. Same as with Blackberry/RIM. Nokia owned mobile phones for a long time in the UK, but by 2009/2010, they were an also-ran largely because of the weakness of their smartphones.
Firstly, he didn’t say they’ll never enter the U.S market.
Secondly, it’s perfectly possible to run a successful and profitable company without being active in the U.S market.