If I were in nVidia's PR department, I'd have my resume out now before the axe falls. The absolute first thing you learn in PR school is don't piss off the press.
A few years ago, Tom's Hardware was nearly shutdown by Intel because he gave them a poor review on a single product. Intel got such enormous bad press, they had to stop.
Nowadays, Tom Pabst still gives them good reviews when their products warrant it, but never gives them the benifit of the doubt (which is, IMHO, is prefectly understandable).
The CEO of nVidia will sooner or later figure out how crappy his PR department is and fire them. If these strong arm tactics get the attention they deserve, I'd guess sooner.
It is provably impossible to write a program that can't be modified in this way. There are some anti-debugger tricks, but they'll probably increase general incompatibility and, they never stopped the pros anyways.
It may be theoretically impossible to write a program that can't be indetectably modified, but from a practical perspective, you can make it damn near impossible, especially when it is dealing with interactive servers.
I don't want to belabor the details of some of the most dirty tricks that will give even NSA crackers a pause (deliberate race conditions in self modifying code, etc), but even non-programmers can understand it isn't that hard to bury half a dozen redundant checks in the game which at rare moments calculate and send disguised CRC verification stamps to the server. All it takes is for your uber-hacker to miss just one of these for the server to mark his unique game id as one held by a cheater. The server can even delay the penalty by many weeks, so as to obfusticate when the cheater was caught.
The real reason why cheating is so prevalent is that most companies don't bother to try. Hell, they don't even bother to use any real encryption on the game authentication id they give out.
This is just marketing hype from Intel. Their 1GHz Pentium III is being outshipped by the 1GHz Athlon by a factor of 12 to 1. You can't even find a 1GHz Pentium listing on the Pricewatch CPU page, let alone compare prices.
Given how much Intel has been suffering from their decision to go with Rambus (see this article from Tom's Hardware), you can see why they feel the need to brag about something.
The problem with real security issues like this one is the number of people who fail to keep up to date on all the latest patches. The infamous Morris worm, for instance, was essentially nothing more than a collection of exploits that had already been published and worked around. It's just that the relatively clueful, but overworked SysAdmins, hadn't installed them yet.
I shudder to think how many clueless MS users will be out there with this vulnerability - even five years from now.
Yes this will be struck down. No matter how well intentioned, legislatures cannot restrict access to information, even to minors. It's the parents job to do that.
Comparisons to the movie rating system is a bad analogy. Movie ratings are fundimentally private, enforced by the industry. Kids can't go in, not because some cop will arrest them, but because the theater itself doesn't let them.
In a certain way this can be compared to the RBL. The government can't decide to target specific sites/companies for spamming (it would be an unconsitutional Letter of Attainder, among other things), but a private party is perfectly able to.
Please also note that with all the hoo-ha about the big old bad "federal gov-mint", it's usually states and local municipalities who are the ones that actually overstep constitutional safeguards.
Most of the "Olympics" and "Olympiads" out there, according to our present system, must get IOC permission to use Olympic in their titles.
The IOC got special legal protections above any beyond any other trademark in most countries because the arena was, at one time, one of the major venues of international pride. Certain eastern european countries had the equivalent of a Cabanet/Ministerial post devoted to (winning) The Olympics, and many countries in the west were little better.
Don't worry about the organizers of the "Special Olympics" and the "Science Olympiad" - they have permission.
However, a few years back, the formerly named "Gay Olympics" were forced to change their name to the "Gay Games". (Apparently the english word "Game" can't be trademarked, even though the English, Greek, and other multi-lingual word "Olympic" can be.) Also, the courts completely chuck common-sense out the window when judging these lawsuits.
I'm not saying this is how it should be, but that is how it is.
Ebay doesn't need a judge, they just need a local prosecutor willing to actually crack down on small scale fraud (which is what this guy is doing by lying to create those bogus accounts).
The laws of this country are already set up to reasonably handle cases of abuse, but despite the flames floating around slashdot about big bad uber-government intervention, the reality is that most enforcement agencies are far too busy to prosecute all but the most egregious white collar crime. They won't do so unless specifically asked. Even then, local issues (e.g. problems that local taxpayers are having) usually trump problems that come from out of state.
Since Linux itself is free, I couldn't figure out exactly what the reviewers were really getting in return for compromising their journalistic ethics... then it hit me!
The FREE CD!
AOL has been doing this for years, sending me FREE CD after FREE CD!! I just didn't realize that they were expecting me to give them a "glowing review" in return!
It's an amusing attempt, but it won't fix the real issue.
There are easily half a dozen ways for downloaders to counter this, from ignoring the user/machine (a.k.a. the way spam is countered), having a private list of trusted trader parties, or just modifying napster so you can listen as the song is being downloaded. Distrupting third party is extremely difficult and never works over an extended time through spoofing.
What is really needed is a consensus... a moral one first, then later perhaps backed up by laws, over what is the permissable under fair use. So long as you have the the RIAA saying people can't loan CDs to their friends to listen to in cars, and some Napster-kiddies saying artists really should provide music as some sort of charity, we'll just keep arguing this over and over and over (which IMHO is much more annoying than any cookoo cookoo cookoo).
Here's my stab at a centerist moral position: Napster-Rips should be treated like songs on the radio or you hear in music kiosks at CD stores. If you find yourself playing the song for any other purpose than evaluation - go out and buy the rights.
I know there isn't a good technological fix for enforcing this behavior (without getting into some big-brother type thing on the internet), but there doesn't have to be. So long as enough people adopt this kind of behavior (and extremists begin to realize they have), all the other issues will sort themselves out.
Heh well whats the difference between state sanctioned lotto and gambling? Well the exact same difference between mafia "protection rackets" and taxation.
ie...its "State Sanctioned".
Exactly... and states (at least in Democracies, which 99.9% of Slashdot posters post from) report to, and are controlled by, the will of the people, which is generically the will of the majority, with protections built in for fundimental rights of various minorities.
The mafia is responsible to no one, and only looks out after itself.
Going with your thread through, I should point out other mafia-like "State Sanctioned" activities you forgot to mention:
"Arrests" are like mafia kidnappings - except they're State Sanctioned and reserved for murders, rapists, thieves, and other people who seem unable to abide by even the reasonably minimal standard of sociatal rules established by the people.
"Fines" and "Legal Judgements" is like mafia thievery - except they're State Sanctioned and reserved for people who are unwilling to abide by reasonable agreements they've made with other people over economic issues, and/or a few other societal rules established by the people.
"Laws" like speed limits, are like mafia threats - except thet're State Sanctioned and intended to alter people into behavior that is less threatening for others who must live in civil society, and they have been established by the people
There is a illigitimate mafia equivalent to nearly all things democracies do. That does not make democracies illigitimate.
A clickwrap license is like the legally groundless boilerplate "contracts" that companies in the early to mid 1900s forced their customers to sign under duress, through fraud, or after purchase, but found out to their cost that they were utterly meaningless in a court of law, except as evidence of the company's dirty hands.
Ok, maybe it doesn't work well as an analogy, because most people don't know the history of these kinds of legal shennanegans, but it's all been done before.
Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it in cyberspace.
The OS company would get the OS/HW part of the X-Box, and the Apps company would do the games for it.
Of course, this may all be moot, because by the time the glacial U.S. court appeals process is finally over 7-8 years from now, the X-Box may already be a dead platform.
SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation - essentially corporations misusing the legal system by filing frivolous lawsuits against individual critics who don't have the means to defend themselves.
This is not so much an online issue - most SLAPPs come from land-use issues.
Some states have anti-SLAPP laws on their books, which make it much more costly for libel plaintiffs who loose in court. Others don't.
Insert U.S. political flamebait here: This is the reason why people need to hold their nose and vote for Democrats. Republicans are so much in the pocket of large corporations that they try to elminate all methods of redress that individuals have.
Technological fixes (such as anonymity) can't address a legal issue, because the bad guys can use technology just as well as the good guys. You actually have to have the law on your side. That means using the political process, no matter how little respect you have for it.
Personally, if I ran one of these websites, I'd just run my entire website through a free web translator such as babelfish, go translate, or freetranslation, to name a few. Then just paste the result into an obscure directory on my site, and put a link to it.
Sure, these wouldn't be very good translations, but it'd probably be enough to scare off any stupid provincial official.
The dispute will more likely center on the "X millions of dollars" part. Does this cover salaries for fixing the system? Revenue lost because of downtime? Upgrading software to more secure versions? That's what'll end up in front of a judge eventually, unless the contract is exceedingly well written.
Also, don't just go assuming that it's always insurance companies who are the rip off artists. In both consumer and commercial insurance, there are many more instances of fraud and legalistic shenanigans by the people covered than by insurers.
Case in point: my brother in law works for the firm that insures Microsoft (Zurich Intl.). Among other things, they cover them with a standard indemnification plan - a.k.a if Microsoft is sued in civil court, the Zurich is responsible for both the defense and the damaages (if any). Just like with many automobile plans, it is the insurance company's lawyers who defend the case, which is only fair since they are the ones on the hook for the monetary loss. Insurers will often settle cases their clients would have fought, because they have less of an emotional attachment to the idea of being proven right in court.
Microsoft is now suing Zurich because they want to be reimbursed for all the attorney's fees they've spent in defending themselves in the anti-trust lawsuit. Microsoft is trying to twist a clearly written indeminfication plan into a blank check for all their exceedingly high-priced lawyer's fees, while giving Zurich no say in how the defense is actually presented.
There was one particular lawsuit where someone sued a grocery store, and they brought up alcohol purchases on his club card in their legal defense.
That happened to Robert Riveria, in a supermarket named Vons, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Safeway.
Briefly, what happened is that Mr. Riveria sued because he slipped in a yogurt spill that hadn't been cleaned up yet. (Seems a bit frivolous to me - but that's just my opinion.) According to Mr.Riveria's attorney, the mediator assigned to the case said Vons' lawyers informed them that theys had used his purchasing information to determine that he regularly purchased alchololic information, and they might imply in court that that was the reason why Mr. Riveria was unable to successfully negotiate his way around the wet cleanup.
Vons asserts their lawyers asked them for the information from the card record department, but it was never granted. (Interestingly, they didn't actually deny that their attorneys made the threat, only that it was baseless.) Note that the information was never used in court, and in fact it was the plantiff who held the press conference reporting it.
I'm note sure this is a case of black and white. Make the judgement yourself. You can find some info about it here
All that needs to be written to bypass all encryption, play limits, and similar mechanisms on a software player is a simple dummy device driver that takes the sound information provided by the program and records it to a file instead of playing it.
At the Streaming Media '99 convention, I listened for several hours to a bunch of Microsoft flaks touting their new SDMI features of WMP. When I asked one of their most technical people what would keep people from doing exactly what you mentioned, or the even more technically unsophisticated step of just playing out the data through a sound card with some Digital Audio interface (AES/EBU, etc.) to a digital recorder, he fled.
I'm sure this is going to get moderated to flamebait, but here goes anyway...
This is a project that the authors admit is barely even started, has already been done using a number of different technologies, and is being justified based on a number of dubious assertions (a.k.a. Java is buggy, Doing a 70's game on modern SW will teach you something valuable).
I define "dittohead" not as someone who is stupid, but as someone whose attachment to a particular ideology or viewpoint is emotion - rather than logic - based. The facts may or may not support their position, but dry logic isn't why they hold their view. They hold their views because they just know they're right.
Using this definition, I'd have to say nearly everyone is a "ditto head" on at least one issue.
Microsoft, certainly, is full of pro-Microsoft dittoheads (duh). Seen in this light, this is by no means a "cynical campaign" by Microsoft "spin doctors". Rather, this screed is a corporate "rant" written by people who think they're working for the greatest company in the world. I'm certain they believe every word of what they wrote. Like typical dittohead litature, it ignores inconvient facts, and casts viewpoints as "fact", but it is by no means intentionally disingenuous.
Certainly, it is no more counter-productive to their viewpoint, than the typical anti-Microsoft dittohead you find on Slashdot is to ours.
Yes, people. We have more than our share of dittoheads - who have such a disgust of Microsoft (emotion based viewpoint), that they are unable to acknowledge the company has ever done anything good. (The diametric opposite of the Microsofty dittohead who is unable to acknowledge that the company has ever done anything bad.) And our dittoheads are just as counterproductive to our views, as Microsoft's marketing literature is to theirs.
Uhhhh. You do realize that the Athlon is SMP capable, today. Right?
SMP capability is not so much a feature of the CPU, as it is a capability of the CPU's associated chipset (which Athlon doesn't have yet, but soon will).
I know you meant it completely as a joke, but there's actually a pretty serious issue in there as well.
Mars, the most habitable plant in the Solar System besides ours, is a lot like Antarctica - except it doesn't have breathable air, a viable biosphere, natural resources (including any significant quantity of water). It's a year-long multi-million dollar space ride away from these too, which makes rescues impossible (not to mention really expensive vacations).
After all the starry-eyed idealism has worn off, who would actually want to live there? Would you?
I predict the upper reaches of Alaska or the Northwest Territories and the depths of Antarctica will be populated long before any significant settlement of Mars will occur (if ever).
We'd better take care of this planet. It's really the only good one out there.
Slashdot Mirror
If I were in nVidia's PR department, I'd have my resume out now before the axe falls. The absolute first thing you learn in PR school is don't piss off the press.
A few years ago, Tom's Hardware was nearly shutdown by Intel because he gave them a poor review on a single product. Intel got such enormous bad press, they had to stop.
Nowadays, Tom Pabst still gives them good reviews when their products warrant it, but never gives them the benifit of the doubt (which is, IMHO, is prefectly understandable).
The CEO of nVidia will sooner or later figure out how crappy his PR department is and fire them. If these strong arm tactics get the attention they deserve, I'd guess sooner.
It may be theoretically impossible to write a program that can't be indetectably modified, but from a practical perspective, you can make it damn near impossible, especially when it is dealing with interactive servers.
I don't want to belabor the details of some of the most dirty tricks that will give even NSA crackers a pause (deliberate race conditions in self modifying code, etc), but even non-programmers can understand it isn't that hard to bury half a dozen redundant checks in the game which at rare moments calculate and send disguised CRC verification stamps to the server. All it takes is for your uber-hacker to miss just one of these for the server to mark his unique game id as one held by a cheater. The server can even delay the penalty by many weeks, so as to obfusticate when the cheater was caught.
The real reason why cheating is so prevalent is that most companies don't bother to try. Hell, they don't even bother to use any real encryption on the game authentication id they give out.
This is just marketing hype from Intel. Their 1GHz Pentium III is being outshipped by the 1GHz Athlon by a factor of 12 to 1. You can't even find a 1GHz Pentium listing on the Pricewatch CPU page, let alone compare prices.
Given how much Intel has been suffering from their decision to go with Rambus (see this article from Tom's Hardware), you can see why they feel the need to brag about something.
Probably in a few years scientists will find that intestinal cilia are used as well...
That's why so many people have shit for brains.
The problem with real security issues like this one is the number of people who fail to keep up to date on all the latest patches. The infamous Morris worm, for instance, was essentially nothing more than a collection of exploits that had already been published and worked around. It's just that the relatively clueful, but overworked SysAdmins, hadn't installed them yet.
I shudder to think how many clueless MS users will be out there with this vulnerability - even five years from now.
Yes this will be struck down. No matter how well intentioned, legislatures cannot restrict access to information, even to minors. It's the parents job to do that.
Comparisons to the movie rating system is a bad analogy. Movie ratings are fundimentally private, enforced by the industry. Kids can't go in, not because some cop will arrest them, but because the theater itself doesn't let them.
In a certain way this can be compared to the RBL. The government can't decide to target specific sites/companies for spamming (it would be an unconsitutional Letter of Attainder, among other things), but a private party is perfectly able to.
Please also note that with all the hoo-ha about the big old bad "federal gov-mint", it's usually states and local municipalities who are the ones that actually overstep constitutional safeguards.
Yet another review is available from gamesdepot. You can find it here.
No you don't. These EM storms don't affect biological organisms at all...
...unless you have a very wierd prosthetic you aren't telling us about
Most of the "Olympics" and "Olympiads" out there, according to our present system, must get IOC permission to use Olympic in their titles.
The IOC got special legal protections above any beyond any other trademark in most countries because the arena was, at one time, one of the major venues of international pride. Certain eastern european countries had the equivalent of a Cabanet/Ministerial post devoted to (winning) The Olympics, and many countries in the west were little better.
Don't worry about the organizers of the "Special Olympics" and the "Science Olympiad" - they have permission.
However, a few years back, the formerly named "Gay Olympics" were forced to change their name to the "Gay Games". (Apparently the english word "Game" can't be trademarked, even though the English, Greek, and other multi-lingual word "Olympic" can be.) Also, the courts completely chuck common-sense out the window when judging these lawsuits.
I'm not saying this is how it should be, but that is how it is.
Ebay doesn't need a judge, they just need a local prosecutor willing to actually crack down on small scale fraud (which is what this guy is doing by lying to create those bogus accounts).
The laws of this country are already set up to reasonably handle cases of abuse, but despite the flames floating around slashdot about big bad uber-government intervention, the reality is that most enforcement agencies are far too busy to prosecute all but the most egregious white collar crime. They won't do so unless specifically asked. Even then, local issues (e.g. problems that local taxpayers are having) usually trump problems that come from out of state.
Since Linux itself is free, I couldn't figure out exactly what the reviewers were really getting in return for compromising their journalistic ethics... then it hit me!
The FREE CD!
AOL has been doing this for years, sending me FREE CD after FREE CD!!
I just didn't realize that they were expecting me to give them a "glowing review" in return!
Boy, do I have a lot of writing to do!
It's an amusing attempt, but it won't fix the real issue.
There are easily half a dozen ways for downloaders to counter this, from ignoring the user/machine (a.k.a. the way spam is countered), having a private list of trusted trader parties, or just modifying napster so you can listen as the song is being downloaded. Distrupting third party is extremely difficult and never works over an extended time through spoofing.
What is really needed is a consensus... a moral one first, then later perhaps backed up by laws, over what is the permissable under fair use. So long as you have the the RIAA saying people can't loan CDs to their friends to listen to in cars, and some Napster-kiddies saying artists really should provide music as some sort of charity, we'll just keep arguing this over and over and over (which IMHO is much more annoying than any cookoo cookoo cookoo).
Here's my stab at a centerist moral position: Napster-Rips should be treated like songs on the radio or you hear in music kiosks at CD stores. If you find yourself playing the song for any other purpose than evaluation - go out and buy the rights.
I know there isn't a good technological fix for enforcing this behavior (without getting into some big-brother type thing on the internet), but there doesn't have to be. So long as enough people adopt this kind of behavior (and extremists begin to realize they have), all the other issues will sort themselves out.
Exactly... and states (at least in Democracies, which 99.9% of Slashdot posters post from) report to, and are controlled by, the will of the people, which is generically the will of the majority, with protections built in for fundimental rights of various minorities.
The mafia is responsible to no one, and only looks out after itself.
Going with your thread through, I should point out other mafia-like "State Sanctioned" activities you forgot to mention:
"Arrests" are like mafia kidnappings - except they're State Sanctioned and reserved for murders, rapists, thieves, and other people who seem unable to abide by even the reasonably minimal standard of sociatal rules established by the people.
"Fines" and "Legal Judgements" is like mafia thievery - except they're State Sanctioned and reserved for people who are unwilling to abide by reasonable agreements they've made with other people over economic issues, and/or a few other societal rules established by the people.
"Laws" like speed limits, are like mafia threats - except thet're State Sanctioned and intended to alter people into behavior that is less threatening for others who must live in civil society, and they have been established by the people
There is a illigitimate mafia equivalent to nearly all things democracies do. That does not make democracies illigitimate.
A clickwrap license is like the legally groundless boilerplate "contracts" that companies in the early to mid 1900s forced their customers to sign under duress, through fraud, or after purchase, but found out to their cost that they were utterly meaningless in a court of law, except as evidence of the company's dirty hands.
Ok, maybe it doesn't work well as an analogy, because most people don't know the history of these kinds of legal shennanegans, but it's all been done before.
Those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it in cyberspace.
The OS company would get the OS/HW part of the X-Box, and the Apps company would do the games for it.
Of course, this may all be moot, because by the time the glacial U.S. court appeals process is finally over 7-8 years from now, the X-Box may already be a dead platform.
SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation - essentially corporations misusing the legal system by filing frivolous lawsuits against individual critics who don't have the means to defend themselves.
This is not so much an online issue - most SLAPPs come from land-use issues.
Some states have anti-SLAPP laws on their books, which make it much more costly for libel plaintiffs who loose in court. Others don't.
Insert U.S. political flamebait here:
This is the reason why people need to hold their nose and vote for Democrats. Republicans are so much in the pocket of large corporations that they try to elminate all methods of redress that individuals have.
Technological fixes (such as anonymity) can't address a legal issue, because the bad guys can use technology just as well as the good guys. You actually have to have the law on your side. That means using the political process, no matter how little respect you have for it.
Personally, if I ran one of these websites, I'd just run my entire website through a free web translator such as babelfish, go translate, or freetranslation, to name a few. Then just paste the result into an obscure directory on my site, and put a link to it.
Sure, these wouldn't be very good translations, but it'd probably be enough to scare off any stupid provincial official.
The dispute will more likely center on the "X millions of dollars" part. Does this cover salaries for fixing the system? Revenue lost because of downtime? Upgrading software to more secure versions? That's what'll end up in front of a judge eventually, unless the contract is exceedingly well written.
Also, don't just go assuming that it's always insurance companies who are the rip off artists. In both consumer and commercial insurance, there are many more instances of fraud and legalistic shenanigans by the people covered than by insurers.
Case in point: my brother in law works for the firm that insures Microsoft (Zurich Intl.). Among other things, they cover them with a standard indemnification plan - a.k.a if Microsoft is sued in civil court, the Zurich is responsible for both the defense and the damaages (if any). Just like with many automobile plans, it is the insurance company's lawyers who defend the case, which is only fair since they are the ones on the hook for the monetary loss. Insurers will often settle cases their clients would have fought, because they have less of an emotional attachment to the idea of being proven right in court.
Microsoft is now suing Zurich because they want to be reimbursed for all the attorney's fees they've spent in defending themselves in the anti-trust lawsuit. Microsoft is trying to twist a clearly written indeminfication plan into a blank check for all their exceedingly high-priced lawyer's fees, while giving Zurich no say in how the defense is actually presented.
Needless to say, Zurich is defending itself.
That happened to Robert Riveria, in a supermarket named Vons, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Safeway.
Briefly, what happened is that Mr. Riveria sued because he slipped in a yogurt spill that hadn't been cleaned up yet. (Seems a bit frivolous to me - but that's just my opinion.) According to Mr.Riveria's attorney, the mediator assigned to the case said Vons' lawyers informed them that theys had used his purchasing information to determine that he regularly purchased alchololic information, and they might imply in court that that was the reason why Mr. Riveria was unable to successfully negotiate his way around the wet cleanup.
Vons asserts their lawyers asked them for the information from the card record department, but it was never granted. (Interestingly, they didn't actually deny that their attorneys made the threat, only that it was baseless.) Note that the information was never used in court, and in fact it was the plantiff who held the press conference reporting it.
I'm note sure this is a case of black and white. Make the judgement yourself. You can find some info about it here
At the Streaming Media '99 convention, I listened for several hours to a bunch of Microsoft flaks touting their new SDMI features of WMP. When I asked one of their most technical people what would keep people from doing exactly what you mentioned, or the even more technically unsophisticated step of just playing out the data through a sound card with some Digital Audio interface (AES/EBU, etc.) to a digital recorder, he fled.
SDMI is a fiction.I'm sure this is going to get moderated to flamebait, but here goes anyway...
This is a project that the authors admit is barely even started, has already been done using a number of different technologies, and is being justified based on a number of dubious assertions (a.k.a. Java is buggy, Doing a 70's game on modern SW will teach you something valuable).
I really don't see the news value in this.
Are the penguins being tracked using a Linux box?
Are there enough "dittoheads" out there?
Depends on how you define "ditto head".
I define "dittohead" not as someone who is stupid, but as someone whose attachment to a particular ideology or viewpoint is emotion - rather than logic - based. The facts may or may not support their position, but dry logic isn't why they hold their view. They hold their views because they just know they're right.
Using this definition, I'd have to say nearly everyone is a "ditto head" on at least one issue.
Microsoft, certainly, is full of pro-Microsoft dittoheads (duh). Seen in this light, this is by no means a "cynical campaign" by Microsoft "spin doctors". Rather, this screed is a corporate "rant" written by people who think they're working for the greatest company in the world. I'm certain they believe every word of what they wrote. Like typical dittohead litature, it ignores inconvient facts, and casts viewpoints as "fact", but it is by no means intentionally disingenuous.
Certainly, it is no more counter-productive to their viewpoint, than the typical anti-Microsoft dittohead you find on Slashdot is to ours.
Yes, people. We have more than our share of dittoheads - who have such a disgust of Microsoft (emotion based viewpoint), that they are unable to acknowledge the company has ever done anything good. (The diametric opposite of the Microsofty dittohead who is unable to acknowledge that the company has ever done anything bad.) And our dittoheads are just as counterproductive to our views, as Microsoft's marketing literature is to theirs.
Uhhhh. You do realize that the Athlon is SMP capable, today. Right?
SMP capability is not so much a feature of the CPU, as it is a capability of the CPU's associated chipset
(which Athlon doesn't have yet, but soon will).
I know you meant it completely as a joke, but there's actually a pretty serious issue in there as well.
Mars, the most habitable plant in the Solar System besides ours, is a lot like Antarctica - except it doesn't have breathable air, a viable biosphere, natural resources (including any significant quantity of water). It's a year-long multi-million dollar space ride away from these too, which makes rescues impossible (not to mention really expensive vacations).
After all the starry-eyed idealism has worn off, who would actually want to live there? Would you?
I predict the upper reaches of Alaska or the Northwest Territories and the depths of Antarctica will be populated long before any significant settlement of Mars will occur (if ever).
We'd better take care of this planet. It's really the only good one out there.