Oh come on. A hut in deepest Africa? How about looking at their major competitors? Is that too much to ask of someone who professes to speak for the company about a product? That's beyond ignorance. It's willfull ignorance at the very least. I know you were just pointing out that they are salespeople. I guess I've just had enough of salespeople that either don't know what they're talking about or are just outright lying. My point is that whatever the case really is, the customer is still being deceived.
MS may have only bought one seat at the table, but it does exert serious influence in the industry. Perhaps it has the power to influence others on the board. It has often used special prices and other incentives, as well as threats and anti-competitive behavior to influence OEMs and other companies in the past. What makes you think they won't do that here as well?
Hmm.. that must make it ok. MS should educate its salesdroids or replace them with simple brochures. As long as they aren't lying to customers or potential customers I don't care which.
Just because someone doesn't like MS doesn't mean they are happy with other monopolies or companies that abuse their power and commit anti-competitive acts against other companies. MS just happens to be the topic of this discussion and is related to many of the topics we discuss on/.
As for other monopolies and abusive corporations, I wish I had time to study them all and formulate opinions based on the information I find. Unfortunately I don't have that much spare time. It's hard enough just keeping tabs on Microsoft. They seem to be growing like a fungus in a warm, damp place. Bill has his fingers in too many cookie jars. He needs to have them slapped sometimes.
I'll have to leave other investigations and opinions to those who have the time and inclination to study other companies. I don't consider "MS bashing" to be juvenile. I call 'em like I see 'em. MS has done more to hurt the computer industry than it ever has to help it. If MS hadn't come along, then maybe we'd all have been happily using Macs until OS/2 came around. We could speculate all day long, but don't give Microsoft credit where it isn't deserved. Microsoft is a leach. Plain and simple. They either buy or steal the ideas of smaller companies and take credit for them. Then everyone can marvel at all of Bill's "innovations." He was once asked to name 3 things that Microsoft innovated. He tried, but none of them were Microsoft innovations. Don't defend them. They don't deserve it.
Well, since everybody else is just assuming that what Microsoft is donating is worth a million dollars, it seems only right for someone to point out that that may not be (and IMO, is probably not, judging by MS's past contributions) so.
Microsoft was never essential. They were there at the right time and place to attach themselves to the computer revolution like the leaches they are. They innovate practically nothing. They watch and wait for something good to come along and then copy it and take credit for it while the real innovators are forgotten. Make no mistake, if Microsoft hadn't come along and changed the rules, we would have been using Macs or something else altogether. We'd probably be alot better off too. I can only hope that the DOJ squashes Microsoft just as Microsoft has squashed many an innovative company in its time. They've got it coming.
Oh that was real bright. While many companies were trying to get internet software out, Microsoft was still thought the net was an obscure curiosity that wasn't fit for mainstream use. They were pushing their proprietary MSN. They would have the control there. They would dictate who could play and who couldn't and how much it would cost. The point is that Microsoft does what is best for Microsoft. Not for users. Not for OEMs. They do what they have to do to appease them sometimes, but they are forever focusing on what will keep them in power and shut out competition. Don't ever forget that.
Well, I finally managed to login. You might remember me from such posts as the two or three long replies I made to your earlier posts here. Anyway, at least we agree on something here. I've heard the stuff about Switzerland before. It's not much of an argument given the laws in that country. I've also never seen any statistics like the ones he mentions about Britain. You're also correct that there are a lot more factors involved in these violence statistics than availability of guns.
It's keyboard OR mouse. Not both. That kinda blows some of the usefulness. I use the keyboard more than the mouse, but I would need both close by for a solution like this to work for me. How would I play Quake!?;)
"If we are what we eat, then the only real humans are cannibals."
Sorry.. just had to take issue with this. How would the cannibals be real humans if the humans they are eating are not cannibals(and therefore not real humans)? Just curious:)
I take it there are complicated issues around the question of whether the second, third, fourth, fifth parties, etc. have really consented to the license. Remember that none of these secondary parties are signing anything!
Wouldn't it be similar to copyright? I buy a book and I'm not signing anything, but I still can't copy and redistribute it with my own additions or omissions. I'd have corporate attack lawyers kicking my door down.
Of course it's more similar to shrinkwrap licenses. Except for one key point, that is. You can use and examine the program beforehand as well as read the license. I think that was the main complaint about shrinkwrap licenses.
I would think that a court would have a hard time finding fault with the GPL. People write code and give it away under this license. All it really wants is for others who use this code to release their code along with it. It's not difficult. It's pretty cut and dried really. If you want to use GPL'd code, be prepared to give your code away so that others can benefit as you did. If you don't want to release your own code, then don't take advantage of the work of others who did release their code.
Who cares if they want it down or not? I want to hear it and since I'm going to buy the CD anyway, there's no reason I can think of that I shouldn't be able to listen to the MP3.
Actually he said that he knew how they felt because 3 years ago, in his freshman year, he wished he had owned a gun. He was talking about the past. Obviously if he's talking about it in this way now, he is past it and is just trying to get them to understand the problem. The point is that rather than look at his point seriously, they just kick him out of school and send him to counseling.
He's not calling it "Open Source Law." He's calling it "Open Law." Whether it can only be applied to select cases or not seems to be irrelevant to me. I wouldn't expect it to be applied to my case if I was suing or being sued by someone. However, if it was a constitutional issue at stake, I would think that the more input you can get from lawyers and others who are interested in the case, the more arguments you'll have to choose from. There may be angles that the lawyers did not look at. The idea does have some merit and I think it's worth a try in certain cases.
I posted a message like this yesterday, but wanted to post it again here. It's something that I think is worth looking at in light of the fact that nobody seems to want to look at the schools and parents and such as the problem.
School administrators and parents won't accept the responsibility for addressing the real problems here. They can't. To do so would mean accepting liability for the actions of the teens by admitting that the kinds of injustices that we just read about above happen in schools all over the country. In a society that will sue at the drop of a hat (let alone a serious situation like this one), they can't admit any fault. It would open up parents and schools across the country to thousands of lawsuits. So now we have school administrators that are conditioned to deny any and all responsibility for tragedies like this. Parents do the same. The can never solve the problem until they can identify and accept the real problem. They can't do that as long as they fear the crippling lawsuits that will inevitably come from that admission. Without massive media influence to make people understand and recognize the problem, there isn't much chance of schools actually doing anything about it on their own. If they were smart, they'd recognize it and quietly start doing something to fix the problem. I don't think they've shown themselves to be smart though.
School administrators and parents won't accept the responsibility for addressing the real problems here. They can't. To do so would mean accepting liability for the actions of the teens. In a society that will sue at the drop of a hat (let alone a serious situation like this one), they can't admit any fault. It would open up parents and schools across the country to thousands of lawsuits. So now we have school administrators that are conditioned to deny any and all responsibility for tragedies like this. Parents do the same. The can never solve the problem until they can identify and accept the real problem. They can't do that as long as they fear the crippling lawsuits that will inevitably come from that admission.
Depending on what classes are going on, even jocks and preps and whatnot have to be in the library sometimes. I don't even know if that's where the shooting started. Maybe they just ended up in there because that's where alot of the kids went. There aren't enough details yet.
As for your other point, I think you may have something about their obsession with Hitler. That was something that I noticed early on. I don't know how intelligent people could consider Hitler as someone to be idolized, which makes me think that these kids were alot more screwed up than we might think at first.
Basically what you end up with is that kids who are not just different or intelligent, but also screwed up in their moral values and maybe other ways as well and cannot handle the social descrimination and harassment that goes on in school. In the case of mentally unbalanced individuals, I can certainly see violent movies, music and games contributing to their becoming killers. But why couldn't football be included in that list? But isn't that always the case when someone is mentally unbalanced? They don't act rationally. They don't consider consequences. These teens were suicidal. Does everyone think that was caused by violent movies too? Plenty of kids commit suicide because of the pressures of school and fitting in. It takes an exceptionally screwed up kid to try to wipe out the entire school before he goes himself.
I just wrote them an email a couple weeks ago asking them if they have any intention of releasing the specs or at least a Linux driver for the TNT. Never heard a peep back from them though.
I don't consider myself to be a gun nut. I don't even own one. Not sure if I ever will. I do believe that guns should not be sold to just anyone who is old enough to buy one. I believe there should be mandatory tests before allowing someone to purchase a gun. They should be hard enough to weed out the idiots who have no business being near a gun, and require enough training to make people understand how dangerous a gun can be. They should have to learn everything that a soldier learns about how to use a gun. They should also be taught to make their guns inaccessible to kids. If they can go through this training and pass the test(s), then I believe they have a right to own a gun. I would not deprive them of the weapon for self-defense, especially since most people have no other real defense.
Now, about your bit about gun-nuts. What about all these anti-video-game nuts, anti-violent-movies nuts, anti-(whatever music they decide to go after) nuts, and anti-gun nuts? Every one of them is using this as an opportunity to sensationalize the violence and further their own political agendas. It's a crock. If the kids were watching violent movies when they were underage, then it's their parents fault. Violent video games are usually marked as well. Same with the music. Where were their parents. If these kids were this messed up, then there's no way in hell their parents should have let them listen to or watch any of that stuff. Their minds weren't capable of dealing with it. End of story. Don't go screwing around with everyone's rights just because a couple kids went berzerk. This is why it's not such a great idea that anyone is allowed to have kids and then do nothing to raise them right and then turn them loose on the world. Makes me sick that their parents didn't give a rats ass what they were doing. Hell, they were able to build bombs and stockpile weapons in their homes. Are the parents deaf, dumb, and blind? There's something very wrong here, but it's not with the media. The problem is unbalanced minds that are the product of bad parenting.
Banning guns is not the answer...
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
That's a bad way to run it then. There shouldn't be a real limit to how many people are allowed to take the test. As long as they don't have a conviction for a violent crime, and they meet the age requirement, they should be allowed to take the test. Doing it any other way is wrong, and should be criminal since it would deprive people of the right to own a gun for self-defense.
Some school administrators do get it
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like it's a start at least. The question now is whether or not this was just for show because of the media spotlight. Will they continue to promote this kind of interaction between the students or will it die with the press coverage? I sincerely hope they got the point this time and really are working to change things... maybe I'm cynical, but I'll have to see it to believe it. There are too many school administrators that don't want to look at something like this as being the problem. They'd rather pin it on some outside force so that they can pass the responsibility for doing something to fix the problem off on someone else. That way they wash their hands of it and can go back to business as usual.
Thank you for stating that so well. Maybe the government should concentrate on getting illegal guns off the streets and preventing people from obtaining guns illegally rather than simply attempting to ban all guns, which would only affect those who are willing to obey the law in the first place.
How to buy guns illegally
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
Aren't machine guns included under "assault rifles" which are already banned?
Actually, I believe private citizens and companies did own cannons and ships with cannons onboard. It just wasn't all that common. Those things weren't real cheap. Even if F-16s were legal to own, how many people could afford them?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh come on. A hut in deepest Africa? How about looking at their major competitors? Is that too much to ask of someone who professes to speak for the company about a product? That's beyond ignorance. It's willfull ignorance at the very least. I know you were just pointing out that they are salespeople. I guess I've just had enough of salespeople that either don't know what they're talking about or are just outright lying. My point is that whatever the case really is, the customer is still being deceived.
MS may have only bought one seat at the table, but it does exert serious influence in the industry. Perhaps it has the power to influence others on the board. It has often used special prices and other incentives, as well as threats and anti-competitive behavior to influence OEMs and other companies in the past. What makes you think they won't do that here as well?
Hmm.. that must make it ok. MS should educate its salesdroids or replace them with simple brochures. As long as they aren't lying to customers or potential customers I don't care which.
MS used these tactics to twist the arms of the OEMs, why not in this case too?
Just because someone doesn't like MS doesn't mean they are happy with other monopolies or companies that abuse their power and commit anti-competitive acts against other companies. MS just happens to be the topic of this discussion and is related to many of the topics we discuss on /.
As for other monopolies and abusive corporations, I wish I had time to study them all and formulate opinions based on the information I find. Unfortunately I don't have that much spare time. It's hard enough just keeping tabs on Microsoft. They seem to be growing like a fungus in a warm, damp place. Bill has his fingers in too many cookie jars. He needs to have them slapped sometimes.
I'll have to leave other investigations and opinions to those who have the time and inclination to study other companies. I don't consider "MS bashing" to be juvenile. I call 'em like I see 'em. MS has done more to hurt the computer industry than it ever has to help it. If MS hadn't come along, then maybe we'd all have been happily using Macs until OS/2 came around. We could speculate all day long, but don't give Microsoft credit where it isn't deserved. Microsoft is a leach. Plain and simple. They either buy or steal the ideas of smaller companies and take credit for them. Then everyone can marvel at all of Bill's "innovations." He was once asked to name 3 things that Microsoft innovated. He tried, but none of them were Microsoft innovations. Don't defend them. They don't deserve it.
Well, since everybody else is just assuming that what Microsoft is donating is worth a million dollars, it seems only right for someone to point out that that may not be (and IMO, is probably not, judging by MS's past contributions) so.
Microsoft was never essential. They were there at the right time and place to attach themselves to the computer revolution like the leaches they are. They innovate practically nothing. They watch and wait for something good to come along and then copy it and take credit for it while the real innovators are forgotten. Make no mistake, if Microsoft hadn't come along and changed the rules, we would have been using Macs or something else altogether. We'd probably be alot better off too. I can only hope that the DOJ squashes Microsoft just as Microsoft has squashed many an innovative company in its time. They've got it coming.
Oh that was real bright. While many companies were trying to get internet software out, Microsoft was still thought the net was an obscure curiosity that wasn't fit for mainstream use. They were pushing their proprietary MSN. They would have the control there. They would dictate who could play and who couldn't and how much it would cost. The point is that Microsoft does what is best for Microsoft. Not for users. Not for OEMs. They do what they have to do to appease them sometimes, but they are forever focusing on what will keep them in power and shut out competition. Don't ever forget that.
Well, I finally managed to login. You might remember me from such posts as the two or three long replies I made to your earlier posts here. Anyway, at least we agree on something here. I've heard the stuff about Switzerland before. It's not much of an argument given the laws in that country. I've also never seen any statistics like the ones he mentions about Britain. You're also correct that there are a lot more factors involved in these violence statistics than availability of guns.
It's keyboard OR mouse. Not both. That kinda blows some of the usefulness. I use the keyboard more than the mouse, but I would need both close by for a solution like this to work for me. How would I play Quake!? ;)
"If we are what we eat, then the only real humans are cannibals."
Sorry.. just had to take issue with this. How would the cannibals be real humans if the humans they are eating are not cannibals(and therefore not real humans)? Just curious :)
I take it there are complicated issues around the question of whether the second, third, fourth, fifth parties, etc. have really consented to the license. Remember that none of these secondary parties are signing anything!
Wouldn't it be similar to copyright? I buy a book and I'm not signing anything, but I still can't copy and redistribute it with my own additions or omissions. I'd have corporate attack lawyers kicking my door down.
Of course it's more similar to shrinkwrap licenses. Except for one key point, that is. You can use and examine the program beforehand as well as read the license. I think that was the main complaint about shrinkwrap licenses.
I would think that a court would have a hard time finding fault with the GPL. People write code and give it away under this license. All it really wants is for others who use this code to release their code along with it. It's not difficult. It's pretty cut and dried really. If you want to use GPL'd code, be prepared to give your code away so that others can benefit as you did. If you don't want to release your own code, then don't take advantage of the work of others who did release their code.
Who cares if they want it down or not? I want to hear it and since I'm going to buy the CD anyway, there's no reason I can think of that I shouldn't be able to listen to the MP3.
Actually he said that he knew how they felt because 3 years ago, in his freshman year, he wished he had owned a gun. He was talking about the past. Obviously if he's talking about it in this way now, he is past it and is just trying to get them to understand the problem. The point is that rather than look at his point seriously, they just kick him out of school and send him to counseling.
He's not calling it "Open Source Law." He's calling it "Open Law." Whether it can only be applied to select cases or not seems to be irrelevant to me. I wouldn't expect it to be applied to my case if I was suing or being sued by someone. However, if it was a constitutional issue at stake, I would think that the more input you can get from lawyers and others who are interested in the case, the more arguments you'll have to choose from. There may be angles that the lawyers did not look at. The idea does have some merit and I think it's worth a try in certain cases.
I posted a message like this yesterday, but wanted to post it again here. It's something that I think is worth looking at in light of the fact that nobody seems to want to look at the schools and parents and such as the problem.
School administrators and parents won't accept the responsibility for addressing the real problems here. They can't. To do so would mean accepting liability for the actions of the teens by admitting that the kinds of injustices that we just read about above happen in schools all over the country. In a society that will sue at the drop of a hat (let alone a serious situation like this one), they can't admit any fault. It would open up parents and schools across the country to thousands of lawsuits. So now we have school administrators that are conditioned to deny any and all responsibility for tragedies like this. Parents do the same. The can never solve the problem until they can identify and accept the real problem. They can't do that as long as they fear the crippling lawsuits that will inevitably come from that admission. Without massive media influence to make people understand and recognize the problem, there isn't much chance of schools actually doing anything about it on their own. If they were smart, they'd recognize it and quietly start doing something to fix the problem. I don't think they've shown themselves to be smart though.
School administrators and parents won't accept the responsibility for addressing the real problems here. They can't. To do so would mean accepting liability for the actions of the teens. In a society that will sue at the drop of a hat (let alone a serious situation like this one), they can't admit any fault. It would open up parents and schools across the country to thousands of lawsuits. So now we have school administrators that are conditioned to deny any and all responsibility for tragedies like this. Parents do the same. The can never solve the problem until they can identify and accept the real problem. They can't do that as long as they fear the crippling lawsuits that will inevitably come from that admission.
Depending on what classes are going on, even jocks and preps and whatnot have to be in the library sometimes. I don't even know if that's where the shooting started. Maybe they just ended up in there because that's where alot of the kids went. There aren't enough details yet.
As for your other point, I think you may have something about their obsession with Hitler. That was something that I noticed early on. I don't know how intelligent people could consider Hitler as someone to be idolized, which makes me think that these kids were alot more screwed up than we might think at first.
Basically what you end up with is that kids who are not just different or intelligent, but also screwed up in their moral values and maybe other ways as well and cannot handle the social descrimination and harassment that goes on in school. In the case of mentally unbalanced individuals, I can certainly see violent movies, music and games contributing to their becoming killers. But why couldn't football be included in that list? But isn't that always the case when someone is mentally unbalanced? They don't act rationally. They don't consider consequences. These teens were suicidal. Does everyone think that was caused by violent movies too? Plenty of kids commit suicide because of the pressures of school and fitting in. It takes an exceptionally screwed up kid to try to wipe out the entire school before he goes himself.
I just wrote them an email a couple weeks ago asking them if they have any intention of releasing the specs or at least a Linux driver for the TNT. Never heard a peep back from them though.
I don't consider myself to be a gun nut. I don't even own one. Not sure if I ever will. I do believe that guns should not be sold to just anyone who is old enough to buy one. I believe there should be mandatory tests before allowing someone to purchase a gun. They should be hard enough to weed out the idiots who have no business being near a gun, and require enough training to make people understand how dangerous a gun can be. They should have to learn everything that a soldier learns about how to use a gun. They should also be taught to make their guns inaccessible to kids. If they can go through this training and pass the test(s), then I believe they have a right to own a gun. I would not deprive them of the weapon for self-defense, especially since most people have no other real defense.
Now, about your bit about gun-nuts. What about all these anti-video-game nuts, anti-violent-movies nuts, anti-(whatever music they decide to go after) nuts, and anti-gun nuts? Every one of them is using this as an opportunity to sensationalize the violence and further their own political agendas. It's a crock. If the kids were watching violent movies when they were underage, then it's their parents fault. Violent video games are usually marked as well. Same with the music. Where were their parents. If these kids were this messed up, then there's no way in hell their parents should have let them listen to or watch any of that stuff. Their minds weren't capable of dealing with it. End of story. Don't go screwing around with everyone's rights just because a couple kids went berzerk. This is why it's not such a great idea that anyone is allowed to have kids and then do nothing to raise them right and then turn them loose on the world. Makes me sick that their parents didn't give a rats ass what they were doing. Hell, they were able to build bombs and stockpile weapons in their homes. Are the parents deaf, dumb, and blind? There's something very wrong here, but it's not with the media. The problem is unbalanced minds that are the product of bad parenting.
That's a bad way to run it then. There shouldn't be a real limit to how many people are allowed to take the test. As long as they don't have a conviction for a violent crime, and they meet the age requirement, they should be allowed to take the test. Doing it any other way is wrong, and should be criminal since it would deprive people of the right to own a gun for self-defense.
Sounds like it's a start at least. The question now is whether or not this was just for show because of the media spotlight. Will they continue to promote this kind of interaction between the students or will it die with the press coverage? I sincerely hope they got the point this time and really are working to change things... maybe I'm cynical, but I'll have to see it to believe it. There are too many school administrators that don't want to look at something like this as being the problem. They'd rather pin it on some outside force so that they can pass the responsibility for doing something to fix the problem off on someone else. That way they wash their hands of it and can go back to business as usual.
Thank you for stating that so well. Maybe the government should concentrate on getting illegal guns off the streets and preventing people from obtaining guns illegally rather than simply attempting to ban all guns, which would only affect those who are willing to obey the law in the first place.
Aren't machine guns included under "assault rifles" which are already banned?
Actually, I believe private citizens and companies did own cannons and ships with cannons onboard. It just wasn't all that common. Those things weren't real cheap. Even if F-16s were legal to own, how many people could afford them?