The burden of proof is on him, not on you. Otherwise if you are not guilty you would either have to prove that you didn't do something, or to pay $$$, or to get jailed - hardly a fair choice.
The same reason why investigators don't give the suspects 24 hours to dispose of the drugs and weapons before executing a search warrant. It would be tampering with the evidence.
If someone is already familiar with IE and Windows then this guy is not likely to buy a dumbed down appliance. The market for Internet appliances is in homes of people who never used Internet before. My parents, for example, haven't even seen Windows, and they can't care less; they are more interested in gardening and politics:-) Any appliance that is easy to use will do, and AOL is a living proof of that. The extremely simple, automated installation of plugins in Mozilla fully justifies its use - the browser becomes the OS.
I have ThinkNIC and it works very well for me as an always-on MP3 player. I boot it using PXE from another server, then it mounts the filesystem over NFS and runs xmms. There is little else to wish for.
The problem is that it takes a lot of employee time to clean up these old computers for donation; time to check that everything is functional, to do the install, etc.
A bigger problem is to make sure none of the licensed software and company's confidential materials are accidentally left on drives and tapes and floppies... Whether the computer works or not is secondary to the company.
But I believe there is a much bigger reason to destroy stuff: taxes. Giving hardware away can cost you a lot.
as far as the United States and the British Empire is concerned, slavery ended because it was abolished by law
Sorry, I wasn't specific. I didn't mean slavery in USA. I thought more about Greece, Rome, Egypt etc.
I do not know much about US history. 2000 years ago slavery was a norm, slaves were trusted and willingly cooperated with their masters. There is a lot of written material proving that. BTW, this was the case in USA as well - I recall that some freed slaves didn't want to leave masters.
True, slaves didn't have an option to refuse to be branded (as an example). But can *you* refuse to carry the mandatory National ID card once it is introduced?
not until we have lost all of our human rights and are in fact the property of corporations, objectified as consumers in the global capitalistic system... that I think... maybe... perhaps... we might rebel.
Slavery failed and ended not because slaves rebelled (they tried and failed). Slavery ended because it was not efficient (as in profitable) any more. Many slaves accepted their fate with no struggle, exactly as modern people give away their rights and information as something normal.
In the world of, let's say, Robocop, the Corporation controlled everything, and an occasional rebellion was mostly of no importance.
What is more likely, though, that if you rebel your own friends will tie you up and drag to the brainwashing station, out of fear of reprisals. They are quite happy in their cells, after all, and don't want you to endanger their "safety".
It would sound weird to PC people, but what if they did it right the first time?:-)
Very many computers don't need upgrades, and very many users don't want upgrades - at least because upgrades often cost more than a newer box. Anyone willing to upgrade my K6-3 450 box to something 1.4+ GHz? You are looking at replacing *everything*, including the power supply. It wouldn't be any different from a new box, only I don't have the old one any more (to stick into DMZ as a honeypot on FTP, or just give to someone. It runs Q3A well.)
Many (most) users want stability in hardware exactly as much as they want stability in software. If the secretary's wordprocessor and MUA works as it should, why to upgrade? And when finally upgrading, replace the whole thing - will be cheaper and faster to upgrade all components at once.
I think I missed something here. Yes being able to call up your favorite movie at any time is a good thing, but why is it that this doesn't scream out as moving to a suscription based service instead of an ownership based service?
Because the ownership-based service will be around? PPV TV hasn't destroyed the ad-funded one, not even close.
But I can think of one good reason: just imagine how much good hardware will be needed, and how many good sysadmins they will need to hire!:-)
But seriously,
the word "believe" (which I didn't use, BTW) is applicable not only to religious dogmas but mostly to everyday events. For example, "I believe you" or "Sir, I believe you forgot your newspaper" does not necessarily mean that I consider you to be a deity.
To be precise, I don't believe in (presence|absence) of a deity. I just don't know, and I even don't care. Nowadays there are much better reasons to believe in existence of little green men from Mars:-)
Christmas is just one of those religious holidays. Since I have nothing to do with any religion whatsoever, on this day I do whatever I want - I am at work at the moment.
Even ignoring calculations, $1K/mo for all their networking needs is not that much. A salary of one employee (with taxes) is about $5-7K/mo. If the business can't find $12K/yr to pay for the Internet link then this business is in bad shape anyway!
It gives them the right to say "We host 1,000,000,000 email accounts, 99.999% of all email accounts on this planet, read daily by billions of users - would you like to buy some advertising there, by the way?"
The fact that 99% of those accounts are abandoned and just collect spam is of no importance. The disk space is cheap, and these accounts don't even need to be online (they can be on a tape somewhere). It's just the marketing number they are after.
Threatening someone with damages and then offering to "protect" against that threat in exchange for some services is called racketeering and is supposed to be illegal.
21mhz is apparently living in Russia, that's the 'here' he refers to. In Russia you can buy many things (now of wider spectrum than in USA), and nobody in the government will be telling you how to use them.
Russia today is an example of a "young" capitalist society which is still driven by entrepreneurs. USA today is a much older society, with all standard ills of old age.
Presumably you can also flash the ROM in place, which is what Microsoft would do if they need to upgrade/fix it.
Not "presumably" but "for sure". Flash is soldered onto boards unprogrammed, blank. This is because you don't want to mess with the manufacturer's packaging, and it is too expensive to put anything in TSOP package into the burner anyway. Chips are put on boards by pick-and-place machines, and these machines want chips in their original packaging (tape/reel or tube).
Absolute majority of designs has some sort of in-circuit programming feature, like a connector where you can plug a programmer and burn the Flash in place.
Math, for example. You can't memorize every permutation of every math problem; you have to learn a process.
But you can, do and even are expected to. The list of mathematical problems at the exam is very limited and directly related to something that you studied during the course. For example, the spectrum of the FM signal with larger modulation index is described with a gamma function; so you study this specific application of this formula, and the professor won't even want to hear about other wonderful processes in the Universe that the gamma function may describe.
So to pass the exam you literally have to cram a book into your head before the exam - and usually you forget most of it afterward. Exams are not engineered to reveal or measure enginnering or scientific skills. Exams are just crude tools that test your memory. Some people can easily memorize complex proofs of known theorems but are unable (or lazy) to devise a proof of a new one.
The exam tests your raw memory capacity. But the engineering skills don't depend on memory, as long as you can generally find your way in books. It is very difficult to test the real engineering skills of a person, that's why in universities this is done only once (in form of the thesis or some practical work like that).
Slashdot Mirror
On what grounds?
Obviously, all the evidence they need for sending someone a letter is that they run a business.
I doubt any judge will dare to sign a search warrant based on that!
The burden of proof is on him, not on you. Otherwise if you are not guilty you would either have to prove that you didn't do something, or to pay $$$, or to get jailed - hardly a fair choice.
The same reason why investigators don't give the suspects 24 hours to dispose of the drugs and weapons before executing a search warrant. It would be tampering with the evidence.
There are many reasons why they turn the thing off:
The guy needs some photography courses, badly. Or maybe glasses :-) Look at this, for example! What a sloppy job!
If someone is already familiar with IE and Windows then this guy is not likely to buy a dumbed down appliance. The market for Internet appliances is in homes of people who never used Internet before. My parents, for example, haven't even seen Windows, and they can't care less; they are more interested in gardening and politics :-) Any appliance that is easy to use will do, and AOL is a living proof of that. The extremely simple, automated installation of plugins in Mozilla fully justifies its use - the browser becomes the OS.
But as an Internet appliance it is too slow.
A bigger problem is to make sure none of the licensed software and company's confidential materials are accidentally left on drives and tapes and floppies... Whether the computer works or not is secondary to the company.
But I believe there is a much bigger reason to destroy stuff: taxes. Giving hardware away can cost you a lot.
They always can outsource some of the tech support. That should not be a big deal.
Sorry, I wasn't specific. I didn't mean slavery in USA. I thought more about Greece, Rome, Egypt etc. I do not know much about US history. 2000 years ago slavery was a norm, slaves were trusted and willingly cooperated with their masters. There is a lot of written material proving that. BTW, this was the case in USA as well - I recall that some freed slaves didn't want to leave masters.
True, slaves didn't have an option to refuse to be branded (as an example). But can *you* refuse to carry the mandatory National ID card once it is introduced?
Slavery failed and ended not because slaves rebelled (they tried and failed). Slavery ended because it was not efficient (as in profitable) any more. Many slaves accepted their fate with no struggle, exactly as modern people give away their rights and information as something normal.
In the world of, let's say, Robocop, the Corporation controlled everything, and an occasional rebellion was mostly of no importance.
What is more likely, though, that if you rebel your own friends will tie you up and drag to the brainwashing station, out of fear of reprisals. They are quite happy in their cells, after all, and don't want you to endanger their "safety".
I guess you don't watch TV...
Very many computers don't need upgrades, and very many users don't want upgrades - at least because upgrades often cost more than a newer box. Anyone willing to upgrade my K6-3 450 box to something 1.4+ GHz? You are looking at replacing *everything*, including the power supply. It wouldn't be any different from a new box, only I don't have the old one any more (to stick into DMZ as a honeypot on FTP, or just give to someone. It runs Q3A well.)
Many (most) users want stability in hardware exactly as much as they want stability in software. If the secretary's wordprocessor and MUA works as it should, why to upgrade? And when finally upgrading, replace the whole thing - will be cheaper and faster to upgrade all components at once.
The WM is apparently running on Linux. They show the selling points - major business apps that many companies depend on.
Because the ownership-based service will be around? PPV TV hasn't destroyed the ad-funded one, not even close.
But I can think of one good reason: just imagine how much good hardware will be needed, and how many good sysadmins they will need to hire! :-)
But seriously, the word "believe" (which I didn't use, BTW) is applicable not only to religious dogmas but mostly to everyday events. For example, "I believe you" or "Sir, I believe you forgot your newspaper" does not necessarily mean that I consider you to be a deity.
To be precise, I don't believe in (presence|absence) of a deity. I just don't know, and I even don't care. Nowadays there are much better reasons to believe in existence of little green men from Mars :-)
Christmas is just one of those religious holidays. Since I have nothing to do with any religion whatsoever, on this day I do whatever I want - I am at work at the moment.
Even ignoring calculations, $1K/mo for all their networking needs is not that much. A salary of one employee (with taxes) is about $5-7K/mo. If the business can't find $12K/yr to pay for the Internet link then this business is in bad shape anyway!
At their size and with their traffic needs they most likely have a flat fee contract with the upstream provider. That's what I have at work.
There are many legal ways to use MS product and not to pay your own money for it. At work, for one.
The fact that 99% of those accounts are abandoned and just collect spam is of no importance. The disk space is cheap, and these accounts don't even need to be online (they can be on a tape somewhere). It's just the marketing number they are after.
Threatening someone with damages and then offering to "protect" against that threat in exchange for some services is called racketeering and is supposed to be illegal.
Russia today is an example of a "young" capitalist society which is still driven by entrepreneurs. USA today is a much older society, with all standard ills of old age.
Not "presumably" but "for sure". Flash is soldered onto boards unprogrammed, blank. This is because you don't want to mess with the manufacturer's packaging, and it is too expensive to put anything in TSOP package into the burner anyway. Chips are put on boards by pick-and-place machines, and these machines want chips in their original packaging (tape/reel or tube).
Absolute majority of designs has some sort of in-circuit programming feature, like a connector where you can plug a programmer and burn the Flash in place.
But you can, do and even are expected to. The list of mathematical problems at the exam is very limited and directly related to something that you studied during the course. For example, the spectrum of the FM signal with larger modulation index is described with a gamma function; so you study this specific application of this formula, and the professor won't even want to hear about other wonderful processes in the Universe that the gamma function may describe.
So to pass the exam you literally have to cram a book into your head before the exam - and usually you forget most of it afterward. Exams are not engineered to reveal or measure enginnering or scientific skills. Exams are just crude tools that test your memory. Some people can easily memorize complex proofs of known theorems but are unable (or lazy) to devise a proof of a new one.
The exam tests your raw memory capacity. But the engineering skills don't depend on memory, as long as you can generally find your way in books. It is very difficult to test the real engineering skills of a person, that's why in universities this is done only once (in form of the thesis or some practical work like that).