Since Hollywood is the inspiration for many of these studies, I'd like to refer to the documentary Die Hard 2. There was a crash caused by a combination of bad weather conditions, malicous interference by resetting the ground level reported to the plane and the destination airport being controlled by terrorists. The planes with the people using cell phones to communicate with family and the media did not crash.
Until we start replacing pilots with minimum wage aircraft operator trainees, the crash conclusion is irrational. Pilots for commercial airliners have a tremendous amount of experience. There are multiple instruments as well as visual indicators that are combined with experience to make decisions. Interference from other radio transmitters is likely to disable a device, not cause it to give information that will cause a crash. There would have to be several other problems coinciding with cell phone interference to cause a crash. Concluding that cell phones should not be used on planes, as is the current policy, is reasonable. Claiming they will cause a crash is just looney.
So if we get rid of liberal arts, we can live in a world without lawyers? I never knew paradise was so easy to achieve. =)
Math has the benefit of being consistent. The why may be more elusive sometimes, but at least the what is pretty solid. If there are 2 pinecones on one side of a tree and 2 on the other side, there are 4 pinecones on the tree. That's as close as we humans get to absolute truth. Most of math is an expression of something that independent of the observer.
Contrast that with law as a field. Laws are written by one group based on a set of opinions or agendas (rather than a scientifically verifiable process) and interpreted by others with other opinions or agendas. Laws are not a part of nature, they are constructs by humans for humans. Many laws are passed to address perceptions of the cause of a problem and a perception of a solution. This doesn't really come much closer to answering the why question that you cited as a flaw with math.
And the rich don't think they should have to subsidize your children going to public schools. Education is a commonly used reason given to increase property taxes, which are disproportionately paid by the rich. Once the government has the money, education is the first budget item cut to pay for politicians' other pet programs. It's a vicious cycle where education is used as a pawn to manipulate the public.
Should you be required to pay increased taxes to support large corporations? That's exactly what this CD tax is about.
I find arguments more convincing when they don't boild down to "I want someone else's money." I think both of these issues have the same greedy nature at heart, but most people have a hard time admitting that they're inconsistent.
Even systems based on open source software can be misconfigured. While I believe that the only legitimate argument for electronic voting is to create untraceable fraud, this sounds like a case where people configured these machines incorrectly. That's not to say there aren't other problems, but date anomalies are pretty common in environments where people are not one with the tao of NTP.
I recently read Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking which discusses this in more detail. Basically, people with a great deal of experience in a subject develop a gut feeling that is most likely accurate and much faster than trying to analyze why they came to that conclusion. Much of this does happen at a subconscious level, whether awake or asleep.
As a publicly traded company, they have an obligation to improve value for their shareholders. Opening up their business to new markets is a way to do that. Trying to make a political point by refusing to do business with others would likely get them in other trouble. This seems like a catch-22.
Then again, who is google really doing business with in China? The government imposes restrictions on them, but are they really the target customer? What if the situation were reversed - should US companies be restricted from working with some foreign company because of the policies of the US government conflict with the foreign country's government or ideology?
I'm not a fan of China's human rights history, but I don't see the good that comes out of enforcing our values on the rest of the world. To put it in US terms, do you think the people living in the bible belt want to live under California values, or vice versa? There is a point at which we just have to agree to disagree and let others be. Unless we want to go to war and reduce the number of people there are to disagree, but that seems kinda pointless.
If someone discriminates, they risk a barrage of paperwork. It's hard to actually make anything change with the current don't ask, don't tell system. Whereas if someone put in their ad "[ethnic slur]'s need not apply", it saves some people the effort of trying and gives those damn [ethnic slur]'s a chance to firebomb the racist SOB.
People can get along because they genuinely care for their fellow human beings or because they know they'll be brutally murdered if they don't. In the end, the outcome is the same, right?:P
No casual computer user is going to be able to install Windows or configure it well either. Why do you think there are so many Windows machines with so many self-inflicted problems? There is a point at which people accept that they can't do everything and ask for help.
The scientific method has the fatal flaw of being limited to collecting information based on the questions you ask and methodology you use. I found this to be a very true statement made by one of my science teachers in explaining the scientific method. Immoral testing is a good example of something that limits or clouds our understanding. I remember some tests done in the 90's that did nothing more than confirm findings from the 40's. The difference was that in the 40's, the Nazis tested on humans in immoral ways and people were afraid to use that information based on the source.
I would differentiate between copy for use and copy for distribution.
I copied your post when I opened this web page. When I close it, I will destroy the in-memory copy. When I clear my cache or it expires, the unused, on disk copy will be destroyed. This is like sharing a book - when you're done, you have nothing but the impression it left in your mind.
I have copies of my own (purchased, real tangible product) CD's on my computer. They are there for my own convenience. As much as the RIAA would like to claim otherwise, I think a jury would agree that this constitutes fair use of something I own.
Illegal distribution is the problem that so much effort is going into. Trying to solve a people problem with technology never works. However, it seems to keep an awful lot of people employed trying the hopeless.
Nope, it doesn't get better until you're around 50. Actually, it doesn't get better around then, it's just that you start losing your memory and you forget many of the things that trouble you.
Believing every explanation may be a cover story sounds like clinical paranoia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia People have been taking pictures of things for a long time, now there is an institutionalized belief that the only reason to take pictures of anything is to blow it up. When all you have is a terrorist-smashing-hammer, everyone must be a terrorist.
I think you're both right. In the case of $20, it's easier for the bank to refund it and go after the merchant. In the case of $10,000 getting taken out of an account, they are a lot less likely to be as helpful.
I agree. I also thought his answer to my question was better than expected as well.
In all fairness, Microsoft's focus on security is recent and there is a lot of legacy code that will haunt them for quite some time. When you have a poor infrastructure, patching problems is a neverending task. Rebuilding that infrastructure from the ground up with security as a fundamental design consideration would also be a monumental task. Cleaning up someone else's mess is never fun.
You're free to make any changes you want. If you're modifying a kernel mode driver and can't sign it, Windows won't run it. The GPL can't grant you a right that supercedes Microsoft's ability to screw you when you run their products.
People have been claiming someone else will be in control of our hardware for years. Yet, I'm still able to buy hardware that I can run my rogue operating systems and software on.
Each time a large corporation tries to restrict use of something, someone else finds a way around that. Just as you can get mod chips for game consoles, someone will make a mod bios if that's what it takes to regain control of their hardware. I'm a pessimist, but I believe every protection mechanism created by a corporation will be broken. I believe this because I've seen it happen time and time again. It happens because there are too many smart people who don't like restrictions and will find a way to make things work for them.
According to your position, every mainframe and server in the world will be outlawed because a few big companies want to restrict everything. There are a lot more companies who aren't going allow someone to outlaw their entire infrastructure. There's no benefit to DRM on an IBM mainframe or a Sun server. If Sun doesn't need it on their Sparc based servers, Linux doesn't need it on a Sparc either. If Linux doesn't need it on a Sparc, it doesn't need it on a PC. A lot of large companies, like IBM, support Linux on PC's. Those companies are much bigger than RIAA/MPAA/BSA/Microsoft and have people to lobby for their interests as well.
There is no way to force everyone to use Windows or MacOS X on every computer. DRM is a desktop nuisance at best. As much as a few companies would like everyone to suffer, it's just not going to happen.
Vista won't be compatible with GPL 3 with respect to drivers. It's pretty convenient for Microsoft that this works out as a way to exclude GPL 3 drivers. As a monopoly, they have the ability to enforce their will on the market. If you don't like it, talk to the justice department. Or don't use Windows. I've heard I'm not the only one who doesn't use Windows as their primary OS.
What exactly can we do about it now? I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I've noticed that Microsoft doesn't care what I think. I doubt they care what the slashdot crowd thinks either.
Do you frequently need to modify drivers you get from third parties? I'm not in favor of removing control from the user, but I also have a hard time finding a way this would impact me in real life. I don't use Windows for any serious work anyway, so that may be a factor in my view of this not being a real problem.
Maybe they will require applications to be signed next. I'm sure someone would help out the better projects. I don't use PostgreSQL on Windows, but if it were needed, I'd have my company compile and sign the code so that it can still be used.
I can't imagine $500 being a lot of money to any company that creates drivers. Individual OSS developers might be out of luck, but any project that is used by a significant number of people can either get the certificate or find someone who will help them out like I outlined in another comment.
Once this becomes an actual problem, someone will solve it. It's a nuisance at best.
I have a software consulting business. This is a legal entity that would have a clear justification for getting a Commercial Software Publisher Certificate from Verisign. That would allow me to get the Publisher Identity Certificate from Microsoft. With that, I could compile and sign any open source project I wanted to help out. See how easy it is?
Both types of businesses have the same basic costs and staffing when it comes to inventory jockeys and administrative tasks like accounting. However, internet based businesses also need to pay for skilled workers to maintain the servers. Online stores also have to pay for the bandwidth they need. Also, retail has the advantage of proximity - if someone drives by your store, they might want to stop sometime. Online businesses need to get people to find their site. Retail stores only have to compete with other retail stores near them. Online stores have to compete with thousands of other places that are just as easy to go to.
Compare businesses on the internet with mail order if you want to be reasonable. Neither needs to be in a high traffic area, but both need to be somewhere that they can have goods shipped to and from them in a timely manner. Both have lower margins than retail stores and have to make up the difference in volume. Not being a place customers can just stop by, it's important to build a reputation so people will find your store.
Trying to level the playing field by artificially inflating costs will only have one outcome - higher cost to the consumer. The cost of starting an online business is smaller than a retail establishment, but more online businesses never generate enough income to grow.
That's hardly irony. What do you expect to occur in organizations where the vast majority have been taught to value rating over knowledge or accomplishment?
Schools are to teach the majority some basic skills to function in society. Not everyone has potential to do more than be a Walmart greeter.
Is there a general policy within Microsoft to help product teams make consistent security decisions? There are frequently issues where the decision has to be made between being more secure or more user friendly.
For example, file and printer sharing defaulting to off prevents people from unknowingly sharing their resources, but requires non-technical users who do wish to set up a small network to know more about the process than in previous versions.
Slashdot Mirror
Since Hollywood is the inspiration for many of these studies, I'd like to refer to the documentary Die Hard 2. There was a crash caused by a combination of bad weather conditions, malicous interference by resetting the ground level reported to the plane and the destination airport being controlled by terrorists. The planes with the people using cell phones to communicate with family and the media did not crash.
Until we start replacing pilots with minimum wage aircraft operator trainees, the crash conclusion is irrational. Pilots for commercial airliners have a tremendous amount of experience. There are multiple instruments as well as visual indicators that are combined with experience to make decisions. Interference from other radio transmitters is likely to disable a device, not cause it to give information that will cause a crash. There would have to be several other problems coinciding with cell phone interference to cause a crash. Concluding that cell phones should not be used on planes, as is the current policy, is reasonable. Claiming they will cause a crash is just looney.
So if we get rid of liberal arts, we can live in a world without lawyers? I never knew paradise was so easy to achieve. =)
Math has the benefit of being consistent. The why may be more elusive sometimes, but at least the what is pretty solid. If there are 2 pinecones on one side of a tree and 2 on the other side, there are 4 pinecones on the tree. That's as close as we humans get to absolute truth. Most of math is an expression of something that independent of the observer.
Contrast that with law as a field. Laws are written by one group based on a set of opinions or agendas (rather than a scientifically verifiable process) and interpreted by others with other opinions or agendas. Laws are not a part of nature, they are constructs by humans for humans. Many laws are passed to address perceptions of the cause of a problem and a perception of a solution. This doesn't really come much closer to answering the why question that you cited as a flaw with math.
And the rich don't think they should have to subsidize your children going to public schools. Education is a commonly used reason given to increase property taxes, which are disproportionately paid by the rich. Once the government has the money, education is the first budget item cut to pay for politicians' other pet programs. It's a vicious cycle where education is used as a pawn to manipulate the public.
Should you be required to pay increased taxes to support large corporations? That's exactly what this CD tax is about.
I find arguments more convincing when they don't boild down to "I want someone else's money." I think both of these issues have the same greedy nature at heart, but most people have a hard time admitting that they're inconsistent.
Even systems based on open source software can be misconfigured. While I believe that the only legitimate argument for electronic voting is to create untraceable fraud, this sounds like a case where people configured these machines incorrectly. That's not to say there aren't other problems, but date anomalies are pretty common in environments where people are not one with the tao of NTP.
I recently read Blink : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking which discusses this in more detail. Basically, people with a great deal of experience in a subject develop a gut feeling that is most likely accurate and much faster than trying to analyze why they came to that conclusion. Much of this does happen at a subconscious level, whether awake or asleep.
As a publicly traded company, they have an obligation to improve value for their shareholders. Opening up their business to new markets is a way to do that. Trying to make a political point by refusing to do business with others would likely get them in other trouble. This seems like a catch-22.
Then again, who is google really doing business with in China? The government imposes restrictions on them, but are they really the target customer? What if the situation were reversed - should US companies be restricted from working with some foreign company because of the policies of the US government conflict with the foreign country's government or ideology?
I'm not a fan of China's human rights history, but I don't see the good that comes out of enforcing our values on the rest of the world. To put it in US terms, do you think the people living in the bible belt want to live under California values, or vice versa? There is a point at which we just have to agree to disagree and let others be. Unless we want to go to war and reduce the number of people there are to disagree, but that seems kinda pointless.
If someone discriminates, they risk a barrage of paperwork. It's hard to actually make anything change with the current don't ask, don't tell system. Whereas if someone put in their ad "[ethnic slur]'s need not apply", it saves some people the effort of trying and gives those damn [ethnic slur]'s a chance to firebomb the racist SOB.
:P
People can get along because they genuinely care for their fellow human beings or because they know they'll be brutally murdered if they don't. In the end, the outcome is the same, right?
No casual computer user is going to be able to install Windows or configure it well either. Why do you think there are so many Windows machines with so many self-inflicted problems? There is a point at which people accept that they can't do everything and ask for help.
The scientific method has the fatal flaw of being limited to collecting information based on the questions you ask and methodology you use. I found this to be a very true statement made by one of my science teachers in explaining the scientific method. Immoral testing is a good example of something that limits or clouds our understanding. I remember some tests done in the 90's that did nothing more than confirm findings from the 40's. The difference was that in the 40's, the Nazis tested on humans in immoral ways and people were afraid to use that information based on the source.
I can't believe a slashdot poster didn't include spidey in the list.
I would differentiate between copy for use and copy for distribution.
I copied your post when I opened this web page. When I close it, I will destroy the in-memory copy. When I clear my cache or it expires, the unused, on disk copy will be destroyed. This is like sharing a book - when you're done, you have nothing but the impression it left in your mind.
I have copies of my own (purchased, real tangible product) CD's on my computer. They are there for my own convenience. As much as the RIAA would like to claim otherwise, I think a jury would agree that this constitutes fair use of something I own.
Illegal distribution is the problem that so much effort is going into. Trying to solve a people problem with technology never works. However, it seems to keep an awful lot of people employed trying the hopeless.
Nope, it doesn't get better until you're around 50. Actually, it doesn't get better around then, it's just that you start losing your memory and you forget many of the things that trouble you.
Believing every explanation may be a cover story sounds like clinical paranoia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia People have been taking pictures of things for a long time, now there is an institutionalized belief that the only reason to take pictures of anything is to blow it up. When all you have is a terrorist-smashing-hammer, everyone must be a terrorist.
I think you're both right. In the case of $20, it's easier for the bank to refund it and go after the merchant. In the case of $10,000 getting taken out of an account, they are a lot less likely to be as helpful.
I agree. I also thought his answer to my question was better than expected as well.
In all fairness, Microsoft's focus on security is recent and there is a lot of legacy code that will haunt them for quite some time. When you have a poor infrastructure, patching problems is a neverending task. Rebuilding that infrastructure from the ground up with security as a fundamental design consideration would also be a monumental task. Cleaning up someone else's mess is never fun.
You're free to make any changes you want. If you're modifying a kernel mode driver and can't sign it, Windows won't run it. The GPL can't grant you a right that supercedes Microsoft's ability to screw you when you run their products.
People have been claiming someone else will be in control of our hardware for years. Yet, I'm still able to buy hardware that I can run my rogue operating systems and software on.
Each time a large corporation tries to restrict use of something, someone else finds a way around that. Just as you can get mod chips for game consoles, someone will make a mod bios if that's what it takes to regain control of their hardware. I'm a pessimist, but I believe every protection mechanism created by a corporation will be broken. I believe this because I've seen it happen time and time again. It happens because there are too many smart people who don't like restrictions and will find a way to make things work for them.
According to your position, every mainframe and server in the world will be outlawed because a few big companies want to restrict everything. There are a lot more companies who aren't going allow someone to outlaw their entire infrastructure. There's no benefit to DRM on an IBM mainframe or a Sun server. If Sun doesn't need it on their Sparc based servers, Linux doesn't need it on a Sparc either. If Linux doesn't need it on a Sparc, it doesn't need it on a PC. A lot of large companies, like IBM, support Linux on PC's. Those companies are much bigger than RIAA/MPAA/BSA/Microsoft and have people to lobby for their interests as well.
There is no way to force everyone to use Windows or MacOS X on every computer. DRM is a desktop nuisance at best. As much as a few companies would like everyone to suffer, it's just not going to happen.
Vista won't be compatible with GPL 3 with respect to drivers. It's pretty convenient for Microsoft that this works out as a way to exclude GPL 3 drivers. As a monopoly, they have the ability to enforce their will on the market. If you don't like it, talk to the justice department. Or don't use Windows. I've heard I'm not the only one who doesn't use Windows as their primary OS.
What exactly can we do about it now? I'm not sure what you're thinking, but I've noticed that Microsoft doesn't care what I think. I doubt they care what the slashdot crowd thinks either.
Do you frequently need to modify drivers you get from third parties? I'm not in favor of removing control from the user, but I also have a hard time finding a way this would impact me in real life. I don't use Windows for any serious work anyway, so that may be a factor in my view of this not being a real problem.
Maybe they will require applications to be signed next. I'm sure someone would help out the better projects. I don't use PostgreSQL on Windows, but if it were needed, I'd have my company compile and sign the code so that it can still be used.
= 14541623
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174830&cid
I can't imagine $500 being a lot of money to any company that creates drivers. Individual OSS developers might be out of luck, but any project that is used by a significant number of people can either get the certificate or find someone who will help them out like I outlined in another comment.
= 14541623
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=174830&cid
Once this becomes an actual problem, someone will solve it. It's a nuisance at best.
I have a software consulting business. This is a legal entity that would have a clear justification for getting a Commercial Software Publisher Certificate from Verisign. That would allow me to get the Publisher Identity Certificate from Microsoft. With that, I could compile and sign any open source project I wanted to help out. See how easy it is?
Both types of businesses have the same basic costs and staffing when it comes to inventory jockeys and administrative tasks like accounting. However, internet based businesses also need to pay for skilled workers to maintain the servers. Online stores also have to pay for the bandwidth they need. Also, retail has the advantage of proximity - if someone drives by your store, they might want to stop sometime. Online businesses need to get people to find their site. Retail stores only have to compete with other retail stores near them. Online stores have to compete with thousands of other places that are just as easy to go to.
Compare businesses on the internet with mail order if you want to be reasonable. Neither needs to be in a high traffic area, but both need to be somewhere that they can have goods shipped to and from them in a timely manner. Both have lower margins than retail stores and have to make up the difference in volume. Not being a place customers can just stop by, it's important to build a reputation so people will find your store.
Trying to level the playing field by artificially inflating costs will only have one outcome - higher cost to the consumer. The cost of starting an online business is smaller than a retail establishment, but more online businesses never generate enough income to grow.
That's hardly irony. What do you expect to occur in organizations where the vast majority have been taught to value rating over knowledge or accomplishment?
Schools are to teach the majority some basic skills to function in society. Not everyone has potential to do more than be a Walmart greeter.
Is there a general policy within Microsoft to help product teams make consistent security decisions? There are frequently issues where the decision has to be made between being more secure or more user friendly.
For example, file and printer sharing defaulting to off prevents people from unknowingly sharing their resources, but requires non-technical users who do wish to set up a small network to know more about the process than in previous versions.