Slashdot Mirror

Well then I was using 8 bit machines then since before you were born.

You grew up using 16 bit machines, so you never knew the Commodore Vic-20 and Commodore 64, and Apple // series, as well as the TRS-80 COCO, Coleco ADAM, and IBM's PC with CGA 16 color graphics.

I guess you sort of grew up with the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Apple Macintosh, Apple //gs, and those 386 PC clones with VGA?

I'm sorry, but I grew up in the 16+ bits era, so I assumed the 8 bits were to indicate color depth. Wrongly I know now.
Damnit, you made me go even further off-topic.

In five years, every single PC and PC motherboard will have a TPM.

Only if they start confiscating any computer over five years old.. They can have my pre-TPM machines when they pry them out of my cold dead hands :)

I won't boycot, only if the F/OSS alternatives like Linux also use draconian copy protection and spyware in their OSes.

Somehow I doubt they will offer TPM abilities in their OSes.

Next I suppose you will think it is a neat idea if everyone gets a computer chip implanted in their forehead or one of their hands? Then make a computer called "Big Brother" than can monitor everyone's actions and behaviors via the chips. :)

Don't interupt that person, they are on a roll as a troll.

Everyone but them knows that 8 Bit Computers mostly had 16 color graphics, they seem to think 8 bit systems had 256 colors. Well maybe if they were made by Atari, or called the Sinclair Spectrum or something. :)

8-bit CPU & 16 colour display.... not the same thing.

Nope this is not 1978, and it is no longer an 8 bit 16 color world.

Good, because 8 bits makes 256 colors.
2*2*2*2*2*2*2*2=256

I urge everyone to boycott Apple and OSx86 because of the draconian copy protection and spyware features

Spyware? Draconian copy protection? Wha?

Does the bag of bullshit you're carrying around ever get too heavy? In five years, every single PC and PC motherboard will have a TPM. You might as well boycott sand.

Nope this is not 1978, and it is no longer an 8 bit 16 color world.

Still most forms of copy protection have been cracked, despite the fact that it is no longer 1978, and cracking them was not as easy as "fiddle with this" but was more like Polish Math Experts trying to crack the World War II German Enigma codes and instead of 8 wheels, they used 128 wheels. Difficult, but not quite impossible.

The only way to stop this sort of thing is to arrest people who write the programs to crack the security. Like when that Russian programmer was arrested when he visited the USA for a computer conference. He found a way to remove DRM from PDF files so the programs written for blind people can read them. Nobody who made the DRM protection for PDF files help the Blind Readers read the DRM protected PDF files, and it was discrimination against the Blind.

I urge everyone to boycott Apple and OSx86 because of the draconian copy protection and spyware features that it has. Instead use Linux, and support your F/OSS developers so they can add OSx86 type features to Linux. Boycott Microsoft as well, because they are going to do the same thing with Windows Vista. Tell corporations to quit screwing the consumers, and adding these stupid features that we don't want and don't need in the OS.

" So who cares? As long as the authentication for these things is local it'll get hacked."

*sigh* Geeks.

First of all. This isn't 1978. The world has changed and people's knowledge has changed. It's no longer as easy as "fiddle with this".

Second Apple can make it irrelevent that you just happened to crack your local copy. Which would be akin to you breaking into your own car. Fun, but irrelevent.

To paraphrase a Star Trek Movie: What does a Linux ISO need with a 'trackerless torrent'?

Does anybody else find it interesting that here on slashdot, this post was moderated flamebait? And that if it had been anti-Christian and pro-whatever-the-majority-of-you-godless-but-fello w-geeks-are-for then it would have been moderated insightful? It has nothing to do with the logic or structure here: it's entirely a function of what point of view somebody's espousing.

I'm Jewish and figured it out... might have to do with reading the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independance, noticing that 85% of Americans are Christian, and the whole "In God We Trust" thing...

The Federalist Papers, the DoI, and the Bible, while very important documents, do not have the force of law in this country. The Constitution, however, does. In God We Trust isn't a Christian saying, rather it was an anti-godless-Communism, McCarthy-era addition to our currency.

Christianity is not now, nor has ever been, a requirement for citizenship in the USA.

And I'd like to quote:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...

-- Treaty of Tripoli, ratified unanimously by the US Senate, June 7, 1797 and signed by President John Adams

Just wondering.

What are you? Nuts?

If Israel were to outlaw a piece of private property like, I dunno, a vaccine with 90% effectiveness against the prions that cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob, or with 90% effectiveness against the virus that causes SARS, simply because that vaccine was owned by, say, Merck, and Merck wanted a $5 per dose royalty fee, and were to instead impose upon her people a public domain vaccine, without royalty problems, but with only about a 10% rate of effectiveness [efficacy], thereby saving a few bucks, but also dooming thousands of her citizens to death or crippling injuries, what would you call her leaders? Nuts? Or fellow travelers?

What are you? Nuts?

of course the original pledge (without 'under god') was written at the turn of the century by a christian-socialist minister .... the original "one nation, indivisible" was not liked in the South which is one reason why "under God" was snuck in to break it up

-FL

Now, I may be compeletly wrong, maybe they think Americans are religiously sensitive?

In Europe, Americans definitely have a reputation for scary religious fundamentalism, particularly for nut-job guitar-strumming "born again christians", creationists and other such loonies.

Now, the vast majority of Americans I've actually met (not particularly representative of the entirety of America, since they were the ones who can afford to wander over to Europe for the hell of it) have not been even remotely religious - but the Americans one sees on T.V. tend to be thanking/praising/frothing-at-mouth to their god at the drop of a hat.

When one sees american christian fundies and middle-eastern islamic fundies on T.V., the similarities tend to worry the average "godless-commie-european", since we're stuck in between (see the recent wonderful american missile defence plans, which intercept missiles headed for America... so that they drop onto Europe instead...)

As all things in America(TM), the US Army(TM) is just trying to work their brand into some cross-marketing..

man, I cant imagine who could have a problem with that, except maybe some godless-commie.

Maybe they can even work in some 'Enemy Pack Expansion System(TM)' where the latest evil-du-jour can be plugged in and Americans everywhere can have the thrill of bloodily slaughtering them, JUST LIKE THE REAL THING!

I for one welcome this development in the war against %whoever-we-please-at-the-moment%, it will help communicate to the American People(TM) and it will help keep you solidly behind the President, who in times of trouble should not hear any dissenting voices, but a chorus of approval.

What a terrific idea.