Unfortunately, you'd have to toss out virtually an entire party to make any difference whatsoever. Many government officials are appointed by other officials. You have to follow the chain back. Then you can't just pin it on one person usually, but on a particular group of people who decided how things should be done, usually the majority of one party or another. Then you have to somehow make more noise than that party can. That's not easy. They have lots of money. They have lots of political backing from other groups for various reasons. You can't just get someone or many people tossed out for something like this. Other groups have too big an investment in these people. They won't let it happen. You'll end up fighting not just against a politician, but many "ordinary citizens" who just happen to be part of various groups that this politician is helping out in return for support and contributions.
That sheep wouldn't have had a lifespan at all if it hadn't been cloned. How many experiments are perfect from the start? It may take some time, but I think they will figure out where the problems are and fix them. They've done all kinds of things that nobody thought possible. Why not this too?
Would it still be a human if you just clone the body, but not the brain? Which part of your body makes you human? I don't know if I buy any of this stuff. We are made of the same stuff as everything else on this planet. We get hurt sometimes or are born with bad defects. Why shouldn't we be able to put together some replacement parts for ourselves?
Bogus. The government is not your mother here to make every little problem in the world dissapear.
Exactly. I wouldn't want them screwing with my rights or trying to protect me from something that I don't need protection from.
BUT, since this problem wouldn't even exist if it hadn't been for the government using its power to grant NSI a monopoly, I damn well expect them to clean up their own mess!
Look at their stock price. They consistantly make profits whereas many other companys dont and have twice or more the price.
It's not too tough to turn a profit when you have a monopoly that is protected by a government that doesn't seem to care that you are making people pay to give you their information and then turning around and selling it back to them. It's ridiculous that the government ever let it get this out of hand. I can only hope that competition improves the situation. The situation can only improve if the government doesn't allow NSI to use its power to harm its competitors before they have become well-established and the monopoly has been thoroughly broken.
However, just as I can blame, I must also take the blame for ALLOWING them to get away with it. After all, what good is a fee, law, or suggestion if nobody accepts it?
The whole reason NSI was supposed to be government controlled is that it is an essential facility for the Internet. Telling people that they should not accept their terms is like telling people they should not use their phone because the phone company has unfair terms. It's not going to happen because business would come to a screeching halt. This is why the government is supposed to take responsibility for the monopoly that they created. We need the service and cannot boycott it in any significant numbers. Therefore it has to be reigned in by the government. They did an extremely poor job of this (as usual).
(B) the raised price was for a newer version of Windows that IBM hadn't contributed dev effort to.
(A)What newer version of Windows hasn't included all the older crap (that IBM apparently helped to create)?
(B) Why justification does Microsoft have for charging IBM 2-3 times as much for Windows as other OEMs just because a new version with some extra "features" was released?
(C) How do you explain the threats by Joachim Kempin that if IBM didn't stop marketing and/or offering OS/2, they would have to pay alot more for Windows.
(D) How do you explain the deal that Kempin tried to arrange that involved having IBM stop shipping SmartSuite for six months to a year in order to receive a discount on Windows (which would have still had IBM paying more than any other major OEM).
If the press reports seemed to be slanted against Microsoft, it's because Microsoft earned it. They were trying to use their prices to prevent IBM from competing. That's illegal if you have a monopoly, which seems to be pretty well established in court now. I believe there was even an email from a Microsoft exec to an IBM exec that stated that IBM can have Compaq's deal when IBM stops competing. Just another one of those damning emails that show exactly what Microsoft's intentions were.
Netscape the browser might be alive and well, but Netscape the company ain't makin a dime off it right now... Guess who made it that way?
None of those other OSes can really compete with Microsoft. MacOS is the closest thing to a competitor, but they can't do anything to cheese off MS or they lose Office and whatever else MS decides to do to them. BeOS is still too new and has no application support, and the OEMs are afraid that Microsoft will jack their prices for Windows through the roof if they offer it on desktop machines. Linux is making headway in the server arena, but that's not where Microsoft's monopoly power lies. When Microsoft has all the OEMs by the short and curlies, along with its main OS competitors (IBM and Apple), what can they do? It's blatantly obvious that Microsoft holds alot of power over these companies. Haven't you paid attention to what they did to IBM with the Windows pricing and development info? Jeez... wake up.
...but not about the benchmarks. Win or lose, the test will help Linux by shining a spotlight on problem areas so that they can be fixed. Microsoft will always be using the media to its advantage rather than make better products. It can afford to do that. Linux has to constantly improve. Tests like this will help it do just that.
Consumers choose DIVX? Maybe it was because the salespeople at Circuit City would flat out lie about DIVX. They would sing its praises and if you asked them the right questions, such as whether you could watch the movie at a friends house, they would either lie or change the subject. I actually did this a couple times just to see what they would say. I hate morally bankrupt salespeople. DIVX deserved to fail and I hope Circuit City took a good hit to the wallet.
What about radar jammers? What is their justification for those? As I understand it, they interfere with signals being returned from your car so that they will end up being wildly innaccurate. I don't know how the law looks at those, or even how well they work.
You're right that it covers self-incrimination, but I don't know that that is how encrypting information would be viewed. They could call it destruction of evidence.
Actually, this has been argued in court. I believe the decision was something on the order of "Since the police seek to use new sneaky ways of monitoring us, we should have the right to know that we are being monitored." It doesn't make speeding legal, it just tells us that we are being watched.
I think the "nut" label is applied to those who defend their cause to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. I.e., gun nuts refuse to believe that the government should have any say at all about what kind of guns they should be allowed to own. They don't care what other issues are involved and they are unwilling to allow reason into their argument. They just want their guns. Thus, they are labeled as "nuts." Other than such extreme cases, I don't think advocates should be called nuts.
Unfortunately, whether you're telling the truth or not, bad things will often happen to you if you've annoyed someone powerful. That's the thing that is good about anonymity. You can be protected from those who are more powerful (read: have more money for more lawyers) than you. Unfortunately, it seems that all they need to do is accuse you of something in order to have your anonymity removed. After that, it doesn't matter whether you were actually guilty, they know who you are.
I thought he went a bit overboard on a couple of his criticisms too. It has definitely become passe to compare anything to the Nazis. This may not be a good thing. When we try to forget history, we're doomed to relive it. I do agree that we shouldn't stretch things to fit the Nazi comparison though. I think it should either be cut and dry case of something being very Nazi-like, in which case it should be pointed out since many many people don't have any real idea how Hitler came to power or how he went about achieving his ends, or it simply shouldn't be mentioned because it is too much of a stretch and it isn't good to compare relatively minor things to what happened many years ago in Germany.
Just because many people on USENET try to draw comparisons with the Nazis in order to win an argument doesn't mean that we should never draw such comparisons. It is good to remember what happened and how it happened. Just remember also that it took alot of things happening in concert to create the Holocaust and WWII. Just because something is done that is reminiscent of something that the Nazis did, doesn't mean that we're necessarily going down that path. It may however require a watchful eye to make sure that things don't go too far.
Maybe I missed something, but I don't see your point. I think it's quite appropriate, given Microsoft's long history of abuses, that they be opposed "soley because they are Microsoft." I really don't care if they like it or not, they earned it and made a killing along the way. Just chalk it up to karma.
As far as I can see there's nothing wrong with what's being done.
Nothing wrong, except that they are breaking their agreement with the government. They agreed that there would always be free local calls. Now they're saying that local calls to an ISP will be subject to a $.02 per minute tax. According to a previous post, 0867 numbers are not local numbers. Therefore they are not offering free local calls to ISPs now. The customer must pay for local calls to ISPs or use a non-local, lower priority number.
I don't condone any of that. I do however believe that 3DFx needs to get off its collective ass and quit trying to use proprietary APIs to keep the competition at bay. Why can't they just make good products and let consumers choose what's best for them? Nah... that would mean competing on merit... can't have that now can we? All the wrapper does is allow games that were written only for Glide to run on other cards besides 3DFx cards. 3DFx doesn't want anyone to be able to play these games unless they buy a 3DFx card. That's BS. It shows that they are losing their edge and are grasping at anything they can to keep themselves from sinking into mediocrity. Looks like it's too late.
Then they are preventing innovation in the market by using their monopoly power. You can't license the technology to them and tell them they can't offer it until you're good and ready. That puts Intel in charge and everyone else must obey. Doesn't sound like a healthy market to me. Intel should be slapped down. We need the competition pretty bad.
Actually AMD is just now starting to beat out Intel in terms of CPU power. They still lag behind in influence and economical terms. They aren't nearly as wealthy as Intel. They are struggling because Intel is able to keep dropping prices on Celerons since those aren't their main moneymakers. AMD is still around because they make a good product for the money and the DOJ and FTC have been rather active lately. I don't think Intel wants to provoke them anymore.
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Unfortunately, you'd have to toss out virtually an entire party to make any difference whatsoever. Many government officials are appointed by other officials. You have to follow the chain back. Then you can't just pin it on one person usually, but on a particular group of people who decided how things should be done, usually the majority of one party or another. Then you have to somehow make more noise than that party can. That's not easy. They have lots of money. They have lots of political backing from other groups for various reasons. You can't just get someone or many people tossed out for something like this. Other groups have too big an investment in these people. They won't let it happen. You'll end up fighting not just against a politician, but many "ordinary citizens" who just happen to be part of various groups that this politician is helping out in return for support and contributions.
That sheep wouldn't have had a lifespan at all if it hadn't been cloned. How many experiments are perfect from the start? It may take some time, but I think they will figure out where the problems are and fix them. They've done all kinds of things that nobody thought possible. Why not this too?
How is morality inherently irrational? Perhaps some of our morals are, but I wouldn't say that morality in general is irrational.
Would it still be a human if you just clone the body, but not the brain? Which part of your body makes you human? I don't know if I buy any of this stuff. We are made of the same stuff as everything else on this planet. We get hurt sometimes or are born with bad defects. Why shouldn't we be able to put together some replacement parts for ourselves?
Bogus. The government is not your mother here to make every little problem in the world dissapear.
Exactly. I wouldn't want them screwing with my rights or trying to protect me from something that I don't need protection from.
BUT, since this problem wouldn't even exist if it hadn't been for the government using its power to grant NSI a monopoly, I damn well expect them to clean up their own mess!
Look at their stock price. They consistantly make profits whereas many other companys dont and have twice or more the price.
It's not too tough to turn a profit when you have a monopoly that is protected by a government that doesn't seem to care that you are making people pay to give you their information and then turning around and selling it back to them. It's ridiculous that the government ever let it get this out of hand. I can only hope that competition improves the situation. The situation can only improve if the government doesn't allow NSI to use its power to harm its competitors before they have become well-established and the monopoly has been thoroughly broken.
However, just as I can blame, I must also take the blame for ALLOWING them to get away with it. After all, what good is a fee, law, or suggestion if nobody accepts it?
The whole reason NSI was supposed to be government controlled is that it is an essential facility for the Internet. Telling people that they should not accept their terms is like telling people they should not use their phone because the phone company has unfair terms. It's not going to happen because business would come to a screeching halt. This is why the government is supposed to take responsibility for the monopoly that they created. We need the service and cannot boycott it in any significant numbers. Therefore it has to be reigned in by the government. They did an extremely poor job of this (as usual).
(B) the raised price was for a newer version of Windows that IBM hadn't contributed dev effort to.
(A)What newer version of Windows hasn't included all the older crap (that IBM apparently helped to create)?
(B) Why justification does Microsoft have for charging IBM 2-3 times as much for Windows as other OEMs just because a new version with some extra "features" was released?
(C) How do you explain the threats by Joachim Kempin that if IBM didn't stop marketing and/or offering OS/2, they would have to pay alot more for Windows.
(D) How do you explain the deal that Kempin tried to arrange that involved having IBM stop shipping SmartSuite for six months to a year in order to receive a discount on Windows (which would have still had IBM paying more than any other major OEM).
If the press reports seemed to be slanted against Microsoft, it's because Microsoft earned it. They were trying to use their prices to prevent IBM from competing. That's illegal if you have a monopoly, which seems to be pretty well established in court now. I believe there was even an email from a Microsoft exec to an IBM exec that stated that IBM can have Compaq's deal when IBM stops competing. Just another one of those damning emails that show exactly what Microsoft's intentions were.
Netscape the browser might be alive and well, but Netscape the company ain't makin a dime off it right now... Guess who made it that way?
None of those other OSes can really compete with Microsoft. MacOS is the closest thing to a competitor, but they can't do anything to cheese off MS or they lose Office and whatever else MS decides to do to them. BeOS is still too new and has no application support, and the OEMs are afraid that Microsoft will jack their prices for Windows through the roof if they offer it on desktop machines. Linux is making headway in the server arena, but that's not where Microsoft's monopoly power lies. When Microsoft has all the OEMs by the short and curlies, along with its main OS competitors (IBM and Apple), what can they do? It's blatantly obvious that Microsoft holds alot of power over these companies. Haven't you paid attention to what they did to IBM with the Windows pricing and development info? Jeez... wake up.
...but not about the benchmarks. Win or lose, the test will help Linux by shining a spotlight on problem areas so that they can be fixed. Microsoft will always be using the media to its advantage rather than make better products. It can afford to do that. Linux has to constantly improve. Tests like this will help it do just that.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
The self does not exist
There is no spoon
Sorry.. couldn't resist :)
Consumers choose DIVX? Maybe it was because the salespeople at Circuit City would flat out lie about DIVX. They would sing its praises and if you asked them the right questions, such as whether you could watch the movie at a friends house, they would either lie or change the subject. I actually did this a couple times just to see what they would say. I hate morally bankrupt salespeople. DIVX deserved to fail and I hope Circuit City took a good hit to the wallet.
What about radar jammers? What is their justification for those? As I understand it, they interfere with signals being returned from your car so that they will end up being wildly innaccurate. I don't know how the law looks at those, or even how well they work.
You're right that it covers self-incrimination, but I don't know that that is how encrypting information would be viewed. They could call it destruction of evidence.
Actually, this has been argued in court. I believe the decision was something on the order of "Since the police seek to use new sneaky ways of monitoring us, we should have the right to know that we are being monitored." It doesn't make speeding legal, it just tells us that we are being watched.
I think the "nut" label is applied to those who defend their cause to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. I.e., gun nuts refuse to believe that the government should have any say at all about what kind of guns they should be allowed to own. They don't care what other issues are involved and they are unwilling to allow reason into their argument. They just want their guns. Thus, they are labeled as "nuts." Other than such extreme cases, I don't think advocates should be called nuts.
Unfortunately, whether you're telling the truth or not, bad things will often happen to you if you've annoyed someone powerful. That's the thing that is good about anonymity. You can be protected from those who are more powerful (read: have more money for more lawyers) than you. Unfortunately, it seems that all they need to do is accuse you of something in order to have your anonymity removed. After that, it doesn't matter whether you were actually guilty, they know who you are.
Actually it's called "The Courtship of Princess Leia."
I thought he went a bit overboard on a couple of his criticisms too. It has definitely become passe to compare anything to the Nazis. This may not be a good thing. When we try to forget history, we're doomed to relive it. I do agree that we shouldn't stretch things to fit the Nazi comparison though. I think it should either be cut and dry case of something being very Nazi-like, in which case it should be pointed out since many many people don't have any real idea how Hitler came to power or how he went about achieving his ends, or it simply shouldn't be mentioned because it is too much of a stretch and it isn't good to compare relatively minor things to what happened many years ago in Germany.
Just because many people on USENET try to draw comparisons with the Nazis in order to win an argument doesn't mean that we should never draw such comparisons. It is good to remember what happened and how it happened. Just remember also that it took alot of things happening in concert to create the Holocaust and WWII. Just because something is done that is reminiscent of something that the Nazis did, doesn't mean that we're necessarily going down that path. It may however require a watchful eye to make sure that things don't go too far.
Maybe I missed something, but I don't see your point. I think it's quite appropriate, given Microsoft's long history of abuses, that they be opposed "soley because they are Microsoft." I really don't care if they like it or not, they earned it and made a killing along the way. Just chalk it up to karma.
True. Now if these were all network admins or CTOs or some such thing, then it would be significant.
As far as I can see there's nothing wrong with what's being done.
Nothing wrong, except that they are breaking their agreement with the government. They agreed that there would always be free local calls. Now they're saying that local calls to an ISP will be subject to a $.02 per minute tax. According to a previous post, 0867 numbers are not local numbers. Therefore they are not offering free local calls to ISPs now. The customer must pay for local calls to ISPs or use a non-local, lower priority number.
I don't condone any of that. I do however believe that 3DFx needs to get off its collective ass and quit trying to use proprietary APIs to keep the competition at bay. Why can't they just make good products and let consumers choose what's best for them? Nah... that would mean competing on merit... can't have that now can we? All the wrapper does is allow games that were written only for Glide to run on other cards besides 3DFx cards. 3DFx doesn't want anyone to be able to play these games unless they buy a 3DFx card. That's BS. It shows that they are losing their edge and are grasping at anything they can to keep themselves from sinking into mediocrity. Looks like it's too late.
Then they are preventing innovation in the market by using their monopoly power. You can't license the technology to them and tell them they can't offer it until you're good and ready. That puts Intel in charge and everyone else must obey. Doesn't sound like a healthy market to me. Intel should be slapped down. We need the competition pretty bad.
Actually AMD is just now starting to beat out Intel in terms of CPU power. They still lag behind in influence and economical terms. They aren't nearly as wealthy as Intel. They are struggling because Intel is able to keep dropping prices on Celerons since those aren't their main moneymakers. AMD is still around because they make a good product for the money and the DOJ and FTC have been rather active lately. I don't think Intel wants to provoke them anymore.