Consumers who are already on edge after the Microsoft revelations won't be kind if they think fellow computer giant AOL is playing dirty.
Microsoft revelations? Microsoft's rather.. questionable business tactics have been known for at least a decade. This 'revelation' is the result of relying on the media and the government for information that affects you instead of finding out for yourself. I see this sort of thing going on all the time. No one seems to care anymore about their own damned lives enough to take a more proactive stand on issues that affect them, and this is not alleviated at all by the fact that the large corporations which control 'the media' have a vested interest in people staying ignorant.
Clueless newbies, almost without exception, just click away at the default choice without understanding what they're doing.
An option about which a computers asks you is no different from any other option in the world, i.e. a decision has to be made. Would you automatically say 'yes' to every yes-or-no question that anything (or anyone) else asks you? No? Why do people think computers are somehow different? Maybe this is a good thing because it will teach all these morons out there to actually make *informed* decisions, even when dealing with something as trivial as an installation question. As much as I abhor AOL, I would like to see this lawsuit get thrown out of court because people should not rely upon the government and its court systems to reimburse them for making a stupid decision (whether that stupid decision was installing AOL at all or whether it was clicking on the default choice without considering it, is quite debatable).
IIRC, the Hurd is coded in C. Perhaps by OOD they are referring to the fact that the Mach microkernel is an object, as are all of the message servers that work with it as opposed to the monolithic design of the Linux kernel. OOD means just that... object-oriented DESIGN. This may or may not have anything at all to do with OOP, which is object-oriented PROGRAMMING (such as Java or C++).
Well, in order to do business a spammer has to give you an address, a 1-800 number, a contact, something of the like. All of these things can be abused. Calling 1-800 numbers and wasting their time is excellent, as THEY pay for the long distance on that one. Making the recipient pay can work both ways.
Abusing their mailboxes is fun. It'd be tempting to use say, a T3 shell account to just mailbomb the fuck out of them with copies of their own spam message, perhaps with large file attachments.
True, most of these things are probably illegal and are in either case considered to be 'bad' things to do, but nothing else is working. I do the above sort of things to every spammer who sends me email. I have my fun wasting their time and their money, telling them to fuck off, etc, but what we really need is for a _lot_ of people to do this every time they receive spam. If every spammer found out that the reaction to their spamming always ends up costing them far far more money than they could possibly make from the sales, then it would not make good business sense to continue spamming. This is the only way spamming will ever truly end; when it stops making good business sense.
My apologies for posting twice.. it's been a long day...
Footnote: Personally, I disagree with the Judge. I mean what are Linux, *BSD, BeOS, etc if not competitors in the x86 OS space?
Did you ever wonder why it is that the only competitors to M$ that have had much success are either GPL'ed or otherwise guaranteed to be freely obtainable ('course, with the BSD's, derivitaves thereof may or may not be...)? This is just proof that M$ is indeed leveraging its monopoly power unfairly, because otherwise BeOS would not be the only commercial OS that has had any (albeit quite limited) success. Face it, serious competitors to M$ that are companies have a way of falling victim to embrace and extend. The only reason why, say, Linux is a threat to M$ at all is because their usual tactics don't work on it.
I would like to know one thing: If a hardware manufacturer can be hit this hard because of a rather minor bug in one of its hardware products that hasn't really caused any damage...
Then why can we not hit Microsoft, a software company, just as hard when their OS crashes and people lose data because of it? Damages caused by this one are quite well documented, and don't tell me Microsoft is ignorant of this fact. It is because of Microsoft that the general public thinks that having to reboot an OS every week or every few weeks is OK. To me, the OS is more important than the floppy drive, as I can do without one but not the other. I run Linux, but at work I am forced to use Windows. It has crashed on me numerous times while I was in the middle of something. I save my work frequently, and it still has cost me a lot of time spent redoing work that should not have been lost. What about the company I work for? When I have to redo work like this, they lose money. How many other companies out there are affected by this?
While I think this suit against Toshiba is a bit blown out of proportion, this is a great thing if it is any indication of big business in the IT industry actually being held liable for shoddy products.
Sites that require free registration do so for only one reason: they want a mailing list. They don't gain any money from the registration, so where else would they gain it from? People should realize this and refuse to ever register for anything that is supposedly free. If every company that tried this found that it fails every time, I would not have to waste my time bullshitting them every time I want to read an article. While I'm at it, is there a reason why so many articles from this site appear here? Can anyone really tell me that nytimes is the ONLY place that has any news on this event whatsoever? Maybe that could be true, but I doubt it.
"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither"
- Jefferson
How soon does our young Republic forget the significance of such words. I am 17, and a senior in my high school. Though I will most likely not see the results of such overreactions, I am deeply moved by the fact that we *allow* such things. Yes, we. Don't forget that bureaucrats do these things because no one stops them. They use powerful tools of deception that distort the reality of the situation. I would place a bet that the bureaucrats who run our schools would have loved to have this much power over us a long time ago, but until now, any attempts that were so obviously about nothing but control would have met most ardent opposition. The shootings, such as Columbine, provide a convienient excuse to deploy such things, and they WILL be used for more than anti-violence precautions.
How many precedents do we need before we realize that such far-reaching powers will be abused? The school systems as a whole already have a piss-poor track record for their treatment of people who are different. Schools do not only teach the subjects of their curricula, they also indoctrinate conformity and obedience.
Does anyone else find it strange that subjects such as mathematics, physics, and other sciences are taught formulaically and not conceptually? Though I earned A's throughout the class, I was so frustrated in Chemistry I and Chemistry II because the teacher gave us a formula and showed us how to plug numbers into it and nothing more. I took the initiative of figuring out for myself what I was actually doing, such that instead of memorizing a formula I could instinctively figure out how to arrive at an answer by reading the problem. This is a much faster process, one that involves the use of logic and critical thinking.
Why do schools (and we are talking about Honors and Advanced Placement classes here) not teach students how to think, especially how to think critically? It goes beyond a lowest-common-denominator approach, and insinuates that they are afraid of what we would do if we were no longer sheep. The majority go along with it, after all, it is all they have been exposed to all of their lives. It is people like me, the ones who DO think critically, that clash with the school system so much because we resent their efforts to place themselves upon the pedestal of becoming our shepherds. I am not afraid whatsoever to voice my opinion; no matter what the punishment, my most deeply held beliefs yield to no one--after all, if they can be bought or coerced, what do they mean? I have clashed many times with teachers who wanted me to follow their example and never think for myself, and I have always prevailed because I will not back down and I have made myself quite versed in exactly what powers they have and do not have. Knowing your freedoms and expecting nothing less makes you far more of a threat to them than any gun-toting fuckup.
In the end, they fear us, thus they seek to control us. It shows in their teaching methods, their willingness and indeed their eagerness to substitute fairness and human judgment with blanket rules & regulations, (such as the lovely zero-tolerance policies) machines, and superficial pigeonholing. Katz was quite right in saying that they have pointed the finger at everyone but themselves. They target all the superficial symptoms of violent minds, but they purposefully do not seek the roots, lest they topple their own tree of deceit and fear.
I for one will not sit idly by whilst my freedoms are eroded. I am exquisitely aware of these issues, but my brethren to come will be from a climate which adjusts them to such actions. My school has not become an example of such Draconian measures as of yet, and I intend to speak with the administrators such that my voice is heard. Perhaps I will print up papers on this, and post them where they will be noticed, so that if these things ARE instituted, my fellow students cannot claim ignorance. Awareness is the key issue here. If all else fails, civil disobediance and perhaps outright sabotage of these systems (which, judging from the competency levels of my school officials, their systems will not be difficult to compromise) will send a message that this is not the right solution. There are many who will say that I should not show such strong resistance to what could be for my own good. To this, I answer that no matter what those who consider themselves in loco parentes may say, I know what is for my own good and what is not. Preventing violence is a worthy goal, one that will not be met by the usual tactics of blanket regulations and non-thinking bureaucrats. The school officials need to get personally involved, they need to get to know the students and show that they care about them and about what happens in their lives, that they are not despots looking for rebellions to crush. This is the only way real change will be effected. No tool that minimizes human involvement will ever solve the very human problems that can be caused by the daily abuses that happen at school at the hands of teachers, peers, and administrators.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft revelations? Microsoft's rather
An option about which a computers asks you is no different from any other option in the world, i.e. a decision has to be made. Would you automatically say 'yes' to every yes-or-no question that anything (or anyone) else asks you? No? Why do people think computers are somehow different? Maybe this is a good thing because it will teach all these morons out there to actually make *informed* decisions, even when dealing with something as trivial as an installation question. As much as I abhor AOL, I would like to see this lawsuit get thrown out of court because people should not rely upon the government and its court systems to reimburse them for making a stupid decision (whether that stupid decision was installing AOL at all or whether it was clicking on the default choice without considering it, is quite debatable).
IIRC, the Hurd is coded in C. Perhaps by OOD they are referring to the fact that the Mach microkernel is an object, as are all of the message servers that work with it as opposed to the monolithic design of the Linux kernel. OOD means just that... object-oriented DESIGN. This may or may not have anything at all to do with OOP, which is object-oriented PROGRAMMING (such as Java or C++).
You idiot... he waived his right to a speedy trial.
Well, in order to do business a spammer has to give you an address, a 1-800 number, a contact, something of the like. All of these things can be abused. Calling 1-800 numbers and wasting their time is excellent, as THEY pay for the long distance on that one. Making the recipient pay can work both ways.
Abusing their mailboxes is fun. It'd be tempting to use say, a T3 shell account to just mailbomb the fuck out of them with copies of their own spam message, perhaps with large file attachments.
True, most of these things are probably illegal and are in either case considered to be 'bad' things to do, but nothing else is working. I do the above sort of things to every spammer who sends me email. I have my fun wasting their time and their money, telling them to fuck off, etc, but what we really need is for a _lot_ of people to do this every time they receive spam. If every spammer found out that the reaction to their spamming always ends up costing them far far more money than they could possibly make from the sales, then it would not make good business sense to continue spamming. This is the only way spamming will ever truly end; when it stops making good business sense.
My apologies for posting twice.. it's been a long day...
Did you ever wonder why it is that the only competitors to M$ that have had much success are either GPL'ed or otherwise guaranteed to be freely obtainable ('course, with the BSD's, derivitaves thereof may or may not be...)? This is just proof that M$ is indeed leveraging its monopoly power unfairly, because otherwise BeOS would not be the only commercial OS that has had any (albeit quite limited) success. Face it, serious competitors to M$ that are companies have a way of falling victim to embrace and extend. The only reason why, say, Linux is a threat to M$ at all is because their usual tactics don't work on it.
Byron
I would like to know one thing: If a hardware manufacturer can be hit this hard because of a rather minor bug in one of its hardware products that hasn't really caused any damage...
Then why can we not hit Microsoft, a software company, just as hard when their OS crashes and people lose data because of it? Damages caused by this one are quite well documented, and don't tell me Microsoft is ignorant of this fact.
It is because of Microsoft that the general public thinks that having to reboot an OS every week or every few weeks is OK. To me, the OS is more important than the floppy drive, as I can do without one but not the other. I run Linux, but at work I am forced to use Windows. It has crashed on me numerous times while I was in the middle of something. I save my work frequently, and it still has cost me a lot of time spent redoing work that should not have been lost. What about the company I work for? When I have to redo work like this, they lose money.
How many other companies out there are affected by this?
While I think this suit against Toshiba is a bit blown out of proportion, this is a great thing if it is any indication of big business in the IT industry actually being held liable for shoddy products.
Sites that require free registration do so for only one reason: they want a mailing list. They don't gain any money from the registration, so where else would they gain it from? People should realize this and refuse to ever register for anything that is supposedly free. If every company that tried this found that it fails every time, I would not have to waste my time bullshitting them every time I want to read an article. While I'm at it, is there a reason why so many articles from this site appear here? Can anyone really tell me that nytimes is the ONLY place that has any news on this event whatsoever? Maybe that could be true, but I doubt it.
"Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither"
- Jefferson
How soon does our young Republic forget the significance of such words. I am 17, and a senior in my high school. Though I will most likely not see the results of such overreactions, I am deeply moved by the fact that we *allow* such things. Yes, we. Don't forget that bureaucrats do these things because no one stops them. They use powerful tools of deception that distort the reality of the situation. I would place a bet that the bureaucrats who run our schools would have loved to have this much power over us a long time ago, but until now, any attempts that were so obviously about nothing but control would have met most ardent opposition. The shootings, such as Columbine, provide a convienient excuse to deploy such things, and they WILL be used for more than anti-violence precautions.
How many precedents do we need before we realize that such far-reaching powers will be abused? The school systems as a whole already have a piss-poor track record for their treatment of people who are different. Schools do not only teach the subjects of their curricula, they also indoctrinate conformity and obedience.
Does anyone else find it strange that subjects such as mathematics, physics, and other sciences are taught formulaically and not conceptually? Though I earned A's throughout the class, I was so frustrated in Chemistry I and Chemistry II because the teacher gave us a formula and showed us how to plug numbers into it and nothing more. I took the initiative of figuring out for myself what I was actually doing, such that instead of memorizing a formula I could instinctively figure out how to arrive at an answer by reading the problem. This is a much faster process, one that involves the use of logic and critical thinking.
Why do schools (and we are talking about Honors and Advanced Placement classes here) not teach students how to think, especially how to think critically? It goes beyond a lowest-common-denominator approach, and insinuates that they are afraid of what we would do if we were no longer sheep. The majority go along with it, after all, it is all they have been exposed to all of their lives. It is people like me, the ones who DO think critically, that clash with the school system so much because we resent their efforts to place themselves upon the pedestal of becoming our shepherds. I am not afraid whatsoever to voice my opinion; no matter what the punishment, my most deeply held beliefs yield to no one--after all, if they can be bought or coerced, what do they mean? I have clashed many times with teachers who wanted me to follow their example and never think for myself, and I have always prevailed because I will not back down and I have made myself quite versed in exactly what powers they have and do not have. Knowing your freedoms and expecting nothing less makes you far more of a threat to them than any gun-toting fuckup.
In the end, they fear us, thus they seek to control us. It shows in their teaching methods, their willingness and indeed their eagerness to substitute fairness and human judgment with blanket rules & regulations, (such as the lovely zero-tolerance policies) machines, and superficial pigeonholing. Katz was quite right in saying that they have pointed the finger at everyone but themselves. They target all the superficial symptoms of violent minds, but they purposefully do not seek the roots, lest they topple their own tree of deceit and fear.
I for one will not sit idly by whilst my freedoms are eroded. I am exquisitely aware of these issues, but my brethren to come will be from a climate which adjusts them to such actions. My school has not become an example of such Draconian measures as of yet, and I intend to speak with the administrators such that my voice is heard. Perhaps I will print up papers on this, and post them where they will be noticed, so that if these things ARE instituted, my fellow students cannot claim ignorance. Awareness is the key issue here. If all else fails, civil disobediance and perhaps outright sabotage of these systems (which, judging from the competency levels of my school officials, their systems will not be difficult to compromise) will send a message that this is not the right solution. There are many who will say that I should not show such strong resistance to what could be for my own good. To this, I answer that no matter what those who consider themselves in loco parentes may say, I know what is for my own good and what is not. Preventing violence is a worthy goal, one that will not be met by the usual tactics of blanket regulations and non-thinking bureaucrats. The school officials need to get personally involved, they need to get to know the students and show that they care about them and about what happens in their lives, that they are not despots looking for rebellions to crush. This is the only way real change will be effected. No tool that minimizes human involvement will ever solve the very human problems that can be caused by the daily abuses that happen at school at the hands of teachers, peers, and administrators.
- Byron