There are alternatives to government intervention. As PCs continue to become commonplace, their owners will in turn become, on average, more knowledgable and comfortable with their systems. And these silly trojan-style programs will have no chance in an informed market.
How about a cpu temperature gauge for overclockers.
Or just Athlon owners who live someplace warm.
A cpu odometer to give a running tally of exactly how many clock cycles it has done over its lifetime.
That would be cool. I'd estimate normal workplace use at 1GHz * 9 hours * 1% average usage * 260 days =~ 850 Gcycles/yr. So you'd probably want to measure it in Mcycles, so you can see the numbers move.
Huh? How is ftp like a butler? I guess you can "get" stuff from a butler, but you never really "put" anything. I guess a bank would be a closest thing.
This is a funny idea, though. If you have lots of finger servers (someone might), they could be Pinkie, Ring, Thumb, etc. Mail servers could be Bull, Stallion, Cock... (get it?)
struggling with customer service, poring through complex warranties, waiting on hold for support and assistance, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
What is the oxymoron here? "Customer service?" Nope. "Complex warranties?" Not really. "Support and assistance?" Don't think so. How about, "Jon Katz sentence that makes any sense?"
Publishers have these terrible contracts because they can afford to lose authors over contract terms. My advice to authors: don't try to make a living from it.
It's kinda like the King of England in the 1760's saying
"If you don't like my rules, you can start your own country. --
Of course if you try to do that, I'll jail you for treason"
It's exactly not like that. While it might seem to you a small difference, it's the same difference between me offering you a shirt for $5 and me pulling out a gun and taking $5 from your wallet. However many Windows-based computers there are in the world, you can never be forced to buy one. If there are no other operating systems in existence (and there are), it's not Microsoft's fault: it's the fault of everybody else, who's not making operating systems!
I think that one thing that somebody should ask for is that Microsoft release and freely license the formats and protocols for anything that they bundle with Windows/Office. That way people really could have an opportunity to compete with them on a fair basis...
"Ask for" meaning "sieze by force"? What you're talking about would level the playing field, but that doesn't make it fair. After all, if I play basketball against Michael Jordan, only I'm equipped with rocket shoes, it might level things out. But by no stretch of the imagination is it fair. Remember, what we supposedly believe in in this country is equal opportunity, not equal results. Start levelling things, and the whole modern economy disappears.
Trading with a country is quite a bit different than being a colony of one. When Beijing Company A signs a contract with Los Angeles Company B, there's no king involved. Also, not much chance China could end up like Japan. Cultures, geographies, populations, languages (spoken, at least), *everything* is completely different.
They're not illegal, they're illegally used in the maintenance of a monopoly, is the issue. And the assertion that the code can't be factored out of the OS, for which a doctored video was submitted as faked evidence.
Yes, this is, unfortunately, the key. What's legal for !MS is illegal for MS. There's a symmetry there, I guess. But consider the author who signs an exclusive publishing contract with a publisher: isn't that maintaining the publisher's monopoly on that book? In any case, the only thing here that makes any sense is that perjury is a violation of law (for everyone, even the President). Actions should be [il]legal in their own right, regardless of who the actor is. Otherwise, it's descrimination by the government, which is bad.
I'm an agnostic on the general issue of whether browsing integration is appropriate for any OS, but I can say that the Mac OS doesn't have any browser integration in the sense we're talking here -- the interface to the file system is resolutely non-HTML, what OS-level rendering there is is (as others have pointed out) only used for help viewing, and the platform is browser-agnostic, not hardwired to IE or Netscape.
Apple is notoriously slow to innovate on the software side. Most of the interface (and even non-interface...multitasking, anyone?) improvements from systems 6-9 originated as shareware products that were absorbed by Apple. Of course, OS X is a pretty significant change...
Either way, I just can't swallow the whole maintaining a monopoly thing. IE won the browser war because Netscape stopped releasing new (working) versions for a couple years.
What sort of effort is involved is their problem, not the courts.
But it sure does make one think: is designing a file browser and a help system to use an HTML library really illegal? Can it be? Would I want to live in a place where it could be? To me, the answers are pretty clearly no, no, and no thanks.
Whatever MS did that can be an illegal use of its monopoly, I cannot accept that adding features--whatever they may be--to a product should be illegal.
In the end, browser integration was great: not only did it make help files easier to navigate and cut clicks while file browsing nearly in half, but the industry (Mac and Linux desktops) has largely followed suit. In this case, MS was innovative and succesful in bringing value to its customers. When companies are behaving this way, it's usually a good sign of a healthy free market.
I don't think this is really true. This is one of the few sites where I see ads that I'm interested in, but invariably what happens is I see some words on a banner, click something to read comments, and then think, "oh, I should have clicked on that." Of course, hitting "back" gives me a new banner, so if I'm still interested, it's Google time. Otherwise, I just forget about it. I think the billboard analogy is accurate, in that a lot of online ads function in this subconscious way. Most people read words whenever they see words, so just getting a product name into someone's brain might make a difference when they are choosing among products, services, or merchants. Also, I don't know what kind of analysis is feasible with success of advertising. It seems to me that the only way to accurately measure how well a given banner on slashdot is working is to compare the patronage of a random sample of slashdot readers who saw the ad with a sample of those who didn't, with sample sizes large enough to iron out confounding variables. Tricky, if not technically impossible (until we all have.NET or whatever).
Perhaps, but what's supposed to happen is that new companies are supposed to enter the field when they see others making a profit, driving the supply up and moving the total profit/loss towards equilibrium.
Not permitted by copyright law. No one can compete in the Michael Jackson music market, because his label has a monopoly on that product. Note that copyright is defended as essential to these markets. Nevertheless, many book publishers market books that are no longer protected by copyright: look at the number of different editions there are of any Shakespeare play. In many cases, the publishers, without a monopoly to protect them, must make their products special so as to compete better. To continue the Shakespeare example, publishers may include glossaries, essays about the play, nicer paper or cover (I know, but some people do judge a book by its cover...), or just a lower price. The publisher turns a profit (otherwise, it wouldn't continue to publish it), and the customer gets more for his buck. So who needs copyright?
In a perfect free market, price is just the intersection of the supply curve (firms make more if they get paid more for them) and the demand curve (people buy more if they cost less). In the case of CDs, each record label has a monopoly on each of its recordings (assuming the recording is not in the public domain). I.e., there is exactly one label that will supply me with the new Hairy Hippo disc. So when they price the CDs "too high" (higher than the free market would have them), lost sales aren't going to competitors: the only time sales drop off is when the Hairy Hippo fans stop buying Hairy Hippo records altogether. This has the effect of steepening the demand curve considerably: the supply curve intersects it higher on the price axis, and the price is higher than it would be in a free market.
When I worked in a computer store, I loved when I asked what OS someone had, only to be told "Intel." The rest of the conversation would be something like:
"Okay, do you know what type of CPU you have?"
"32 meg."
"Cool. And how fast is it?"
"5 gig."
In economics this is known as an information inequality (or something like that...). Basically, in the case of insurance, the insured has information that the insurer doesn't (whether or not you like to pass on the right, drive stoned, etc.), and the insurer has maybe some information that the insured doesn't (mostly statistics). Each tries to make estimates of the information he or she lacks, and the price is negotiated. So, really, the insurance companies are just trying to get more information. Assuming the insurance buyers also get more information, we move towards a situation where everyone breaks even, or a perfect market.
I'm not one for violating our freedoms however something like this may help in scaring would be virus creators, hackers and others problematic computer uses (ie. DDOS attackers). If it will help eliminate problems like that I'm all for it, even if my overall freedoms are curbed a little.
And rude people and dog owners... please, if you don't like your freedoms, then just pretend you're in prison. But don't volunteer away my rights. To me it sounds like you definitely are "one for violating our freedoms."
The problem with basing laws on harm is that it is a passive approach to law-enforcement, which relies on the deterrent to be sufficiently regrettable to persuade would-be criminals to not commit crimes.
This is not a problem, it's how it is supposed to work. Try to do anything "active," and you've got thought crime, which I think everyone agrees is not a good place to be. We are seeing a lot of bogus legislation pushed through by big corporations, but these are short-lived laws. They will not hold up in the Supreme Court, and groups in opposition to them are gaining recognition and support in the general population. Citizens can organize to be at least as powerful as corporations in government (look at the NRA), and it is only a matter of time before things are set right.
Slashdot Mirror
There are alternatives to government intervention. As PCs continue to become commonplace, their owners will in turn become, on average, more knowledgable and comfortable with their systems. And these silly trojan-style programs will have no chance in an informed market.
Or just Athlon owners who live someplace warm.
A cpu odometer to give a running tally of exactly how many clock cycles it has done over its lifetime.
That would be cool. I'd estimate normal workplace use at 1GHz * 9 hours * 1% average usage * 260 days =~ 850 Gcycles/yr. So you'd probably want to measure it in Mcycles, so you can see the numbers move.
I think that's spelled "oddassity."
Huh? How is ftp like a butler? I guess you can "get" stuff from a butler, but you never really "put" anything. I guess a bank would be a closest thing.
This is a funny idea, though. If you have lots of finger servers (someone might), they could be Pinkie, Ring, Thumb, etc. Mail servers could be Bull, Stallion, Cock... (get it?)
What is the oxymoron here? "Customer service?" Nope. "Complex warranties?" Not really. "Support and assistance?" Don't think so. How about, "Jon Katz sentence that makes any sense?"
Publishers have these terrible contracts because they can afford to lose authors over contract terms. My advice to authors: don't try to make a living from it.
Also, I believe you get to see Angelina Jolie's nipples in two different scenes. Not bad for PG-13.
It's exactly not like that. While it might seem to you a small difference, it's the same difference between me offering you a shirt for $5 and me pulling out a gun and taking $5 from your wallet. However many Windows-based computers there are in the world, you can never be forced to buy one. If there are no other operating systems in existence (and there are), it's not Microsoft's fault: it's the fault of everybody else, who's not making operating systems!
I think that one thing that somebody should ask for is that Microsoft release and freely license the formats and protocols for anything that they bundle with Windows/Office. That way people really could have an opportunity to compete with them on a fair basis...
"Ask for" meaning "sieze by force"? What you're talking about would level the playing field, but that doesn't make it fair. After all, if I play basketball against Michael Jordan, only I'm equipped with rocket shoes, it might level things out. But by no stretch of the imagination is it fair. Remember, what we supposedly believe in in this country is equal opportunity, not equal results. Start levelling things, and the whole modern economy disappears.
Think about it.
The independently wealthy have a chance.
Yes, this is, unfortunately, the key. What's legal for !MS is illegal for MS. There's a symmetry there, I guess. But consider the author who signs an exclusive publishing contract with a publisher: isn't that maintaining the publisher's monopoly on that book? In any case, the only thing here that makes any sense is that perjury is a violation of law (for everyone, even the President). Actions should be [il]legal in their own right, regardless of who the actor is. Otherwise, it's descrimination by the government, which is bad.
I'm an agnostic on the general issue of whether browsing integration is appropriate for any OS, but I can say that the Mac OS doesn't have any browser integration in the sense we're talking here -- the interface to the file system is resolutely non-HTML, what OS-level rendering there is is (as others have pointed out) only used for help viewing, and the platform is browser-agnostic, not hardwired to IE or Netscape.
Apple is notoriously slow to innovate on the software side. Most of the interface (and even non-interface...multitasking, anyone?) improvements from systems 6-9 originated as shareware products that were absorbed by Apple. Of course, OS X is a pretty significant change...
Either way, I just can't swallow the whole maintaining a monopoly thing. IE won the browser war because Netscape stopped releasing new (working) versions for a couple years.
microsoft makes so many smart moves.
That's right, they're smart. Now how we got to the point where signing a contract can be considered illegal, I don't know...
But it sure does make one think: is designing a file browser and a help system to use an HTML library really illegal? Can it be? Would I want to live in a place where it could be? To me, the answers are pretty clearly no, no, and no thanks.
Whatever MS did that can be an illegal use of its monopoly, I cannot accept that adding features--whatever they may be--to a product should be illegal.
In the end, browser integration was great: not only did it make help files easier to navigate and cut clicks while file browsing nearly in half, but the industry (Mac and Linux desktops) has largely followed suit. In this case, MS was innovative and succesful in bringing value to its customers. When companies are behaving this way, it's usually a good sign of a healthy free market.
I don't think this is really true. This is one of the few sites where I see ads that I'm interested in, but invariably what happens is I see some words on a banner, click something to read comments, and then think, "oh, I should have clicked on that." Of course, hitting "back" gives me a new banner, so if I'm still interested, it's Google time. Otherwise, I just forget about it. I think the billboard analogy is accurate, in that a lot of online ads function in this subconscious way. Most people read words whenever they see words, so just getting a product name into someone's brain might make a difference when they are choosing among products, services, or merchants. Also, I don't know what kind of analysis is feasible with success of advertising. It seems to me that the only way to accurately measure how well a given banner on slashdot is working is to compare the patronage of a random sample of slashdot readers who saw the ad with a sample of those who didn't, with sample sizes large enough to iron out confounding variables. Tricky, if not technically impossible (until we all have .NET or whatever).
"I'm a Rocketman /
Rocketman /
Something something something something Aragorn."
Not permitted by copyright law. No one can compete in the Michael Jackson music market, because his label has a monopoly on that product. Note that copyright is defended as essential to these markets. Nevertheless, many book publishers market books that are no longer protected by copyright: look at the number of different editions there are of any Shakespeare play. In many cases, the publishers, without a monopoly to protect them, must make their products special so as to compete better. To continue the Shakespeare example, publishers may include glossaries, essays about the play, nicer paper or cover (I know, but some people do judge a book by its cover...), or just a lower price. The publisher turns a profit (otherwise, it wouldn't continue to publish it), and the customer gets more for his buck. So who needs copyright?
In a perfect free market, price is just the intersection of the supply curve (firms make more if they get paid more for them) and the demand curve (people buy more if they cost less). In the case of CDs, each record label has a monopoly on each of its recordings (assuming the recording is not in the public domain). I.e., there is exactly one label that will supply me with the new Hairy Hippo disc. So when they price the CDs "too high" (higher than the free market would have them), lost sales aren't going to competitors: the only time sales drop off is when the Hairy Hippo fans stop buying Hairy Hippo records altogether. This has the effect of steepening the demand curve considerably: the supply curve intersects it higher on the price axis, and the price is higher than it would be in a free market.
Maybe I should try this...I could use immesurably more space.
Yes, or even a French or European one.
When I worked in a computer store, I loved when I asked what OS someone had, only to be told "Intel." The rest of the conversation would be something like: "Okay, do you know what type of CPU you have?" "32 meg." "Cool. And how fast is it?" "5 gig."
Usually you pay less taxes, whether they be based on income or purchases.
In economics this is known as an information inequality (or something like that...). Basically, in the case of insurance, the insured has information that the insurer doesn't (whether or not you like to pass on the right, drive stoned, etc.), and the insurer has maybe some information that the insured doesn't (mostly statistics). Each tries to make estimates of the information he or she lacks, and the price is negotiated. So, really, the insurance companies are just trying to get more information. Assuming the insurance buyers also get more information, we move towards a situation where everyone breaks even, or a perfect market.
Isn't it hard enough going through life with the last name "Coward," without some slashdotter insulting KDE?
And rude people and dog owners... please, if you don't like your freedoms, then just pretend you're in prison. But don't volunteer away my rights. To me it sounds like you definitely are "one for violating our freedoms."
This is not a problem, it's how it is supposed to work. Try to do anything "active," and you've got thought crime, which I think everyone agrees is not a good place to be. We are seeing a lot of bogus legislation pushed through by big corporations, but these are short-lived laws. They will not hold up in the Supreme Court, and groups in opposition to them are gaining recognition and support in the general population. Citizens can organize to be at least as powerful as corporations in government (look at the NRA), and it is only a matter of time before things are set right.