I may have overlooked something, but it seems to me that the line should be drawn at "making it possible to choose". DirectX can more than "technically" be removed, it can be just plain removed and that shouldn't impact the rest of the OS. Why should it? I don't know where you're getting these nightmares of tyranny, nobody's saying that a list should be drawn up comprised of OS features with APPROVED and FORBIDDEN written next to them, the idea is to let people besides Microsoft determine what they want included. This is the line that seems arbitrary: that I might choose a different set of features than you.
The DOS days of games weren't so bad, by far the worst were the hardware-limited days of running DOS4GL games under win3.x/95. Competing DirectX? Perhaps, but computers have enough resources these days to support more than one (non-conflicting;) graphics API. Think of (un)installable APIs like shared libs, but with Microsoft muscle behind it to make it reliable.:) Heck, I think it would be great if the APIs could be dynamically loaded, so you could have DirectX for one game, NewAPI for another game, and there would be no conflicts if they aren't loaded at the same time.
Hey, no need to be such a schmuck. There is no "whole story", there are only multitudes of "whole stories" complicated by facts and overlapping opinions. We each have our preferences and sympathies and, in a nutshell, this is what inscribes our political stances. Especially in D.C., the Mecca for compromisers, you're never going to find someone with whom you fully agree. To choose people who serve your purpose(s) "well enough" is about as much as you can hope for.
You're playing right into Microsoft's game: it's not the OS that would be crippled, but the *product*. Microsoft markets Windows almost as a suite of functions, and to take any of those away would necessitate their changing their marketing stragegy that has evolved over years and years. I'll repeat: Embedded Windows seems to use a modular structure much like UNIX, while consumer Windows is a branded, packaged set of functions. It would not "cripple" Windows if Media Player was de-integrated. It would not cripple Windows if Notepad was left out (edit.com is just as good;). It *would* cripple their product vision, however, because consumers would become aware of the changes and have cause to reflect upon the usefulness of Windows as a whole. Many many people see Windows as a single entity, if they recognized that any OS is basically a hardware handler with whatever frills happen to be included (or available), then they could become smart enough to choose something else. It runs counter to an entrenched market leader's interests for people to have a benchmark to compare OSes where before there was only one OS. Users who are able to ask themselves or their friends if they really need some particular feature of what they're buying are Microsoft's nightmare.
I don't know much about the scientific community, but I'm surprised that someone would say that's AIX' only stronghold. There are tons and tons of big old databases out there running on IBM fridges, as another example, ACNielsen runs AIX.
That's why I qualified my statement with "fuzzy". Nightclubs which employ DJs are supposed to only pay BMI/ASCAP/etc. fees for "distributing" music to their patrons. It's still a murky area when profits aren't involved.
As long as the accused prostrate themselves before the RIAA, fuzzy precedents like this will become as established as any other rule of law. Of course the price of legal wrangling is prohibitive, but in case you didn't notice, ethics cost extra these days. It's a difficult situation that cuts across many extra-legal conflicts.
As long as nuclear warheads exist, this sort of research is absolutely critical, and its not anyones place to put down this research for ethical reasons related to the existance of the bomb. The two are related but totally separate, and you shouldn't cross those beams.
"Ours is not to question why..."
You're using circular logic. There's no reason nuclear warheads can't be decommissioned, except for politics. Ethics are necessary to break the cycle.
I use Opera for 99% of my browsing primarily for its annoyance-abatement features, but for some things -- like OWA -- there is no substitute for a plain, dumb browser. Unless pop-ups in email are a big problem for you, it seems to work.
The root DNS servers aren't all *run* by one company. They are all run by a variety of voluteers who work for different companies and can't be said to have the same opinion of Verisign or whoever is governing the TLDs these days.
I thought Spamcop was a good idea until I realized that spammers were including the To: addresses in the bodies of spam. This is roughly equivalent to just replying to the email, since many times complaints will make it back to the spammers. I don't use them anymore.
Why would "advertising professionals" pay lots of money to look at other peoples' commercials? Research? Historical reference? I guess, but I don't buy it. Which ad-pro role would be responsible for using this site, the CEO? The intern? Advertising people tend to know what has come before and what else is out there, since...you know...it's their job and stuff.
Advertising is about differentiation and identity, and unless New-AdCritic is aiming at the lowest common denominator AdCritic isn't going to be able to differentiate their own selves from basic TV (HBO/PayTV with commercials, but without content. SIGN ME UP!). The real point of this is that they're saying that "AdCritic is coming back...for a fee". That's all. Everything else is speculation on the demand they hope to plug into. Perhaps they'll try and snag a billionth of the advertising data market, but I'd say it's more likely that lusers will have access for a subscription fee and the advertising professionals will pay through the nose to get a peek at the demographics of commercial viewers. Gotta love that registration data, and I bet all of this would still come prepackaged with banner ads! If history is any indication and they latch onto the sales/marketing dweeb stereotype, they're overstating their importance and hoping that they can make *any* money off of people watching commercials and only commercials and telling their friends about commercials for hours on end.
Privacy policies are not there to guarantee your privacy, they are used to tell you how little you have. The tone is invariably one of agression: "This is what we will do with your information, like it or lump it. P.S. We will change this if we want."
Re:And if they claim they're system files?
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 2
Well if you read the article, it's apparent that it isn't "system files" but configuration or log files for the other program. I'm wondering if the spyware actually goes into the counterspy directory and modifies stuff there, which seems like what's happening. What if you install Mutt or Emacs, and as part of the install process they break PINE or vi (respectively, and intentionally)?
Trespassing?
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Certainly a court case can be made for one company modifying the files of the other's software. Leaving alone the obviously bad programming practice of having critical files able to be overwritten or appended to, it sucks that the courts would be the only recourse for something like this.
Why do so many on Slashdot people feel compelled to write FUD about Java just because it's not GPL?
Aside from you pulling that GPL crack out of your ass (your comment's parent didn't mention the GPL once), there seems to be plenty of room for criticism of Sun's relationship with Java and OSS. Want to install the JDK on FreeBSD? Be sure to a)install a GUI; b)install a browser that works with the various linking methods that Sun uses; c) register for a sun.com account and waste time telling Sun important things like your address; d) log in; e)Agree to the SCSL; f)download something that says "Linux" in the name (there are very few references to FreeBSD at Sun, and none in the JDK download section); g)manually download the source file; h)Agree to a license *again*; i) etc...
Leave it to Sun to infect FreeBSD with the Microsoft-style inefficiencies that FBSD has been so good at distancing itself from. It's not about the GPL, it's about Sun and the way they treat people who aren't their cheerleaders. Being an employee of wide-line Java shop, you probably don't have occasion to relate to that.
It's just another instance of people wanting to be led, rather than living their own lives and making up their own minds. Subsuming thought under a static structure like religion, patriotism, sports, etc.
Well gee, could that be because the companies won't be honest on their own? You play your cards like the market is in this perfect state when the silly tort system is doing its job, but is dragged down by increasing abuses by victims and law firms. Perhaps we can place ourselves in an equally untenable position by saying that we'd have a perfectly functioning tort system if all these sleazy companies weren't getting in the way. Not much of an improvement? Of course not, because blaming one for the others' ills ignores the role of the other.
Oh, for the days of yore and their perfect tort system! How we miss them so! Was this the perfect tort system that tempered the desires of the robber barons? Is it the perfect tort system that instituted the 40-hour workweek? Frankly, I don't remember. Your "consumers and 401(k) stockholders" are minor players in the corporate value (and law) game, which is largely out of the hands of the majority of the population. Perhaps the lawyers have bought off the Democratic Party, who has bought off the Republicans? Not our beautiful market, which struggles against predators EVERY DAY to provide sunshine and lollipops through a minefield of lawsuits and market forces. Seemingly by your reasoning, the Dalkon shield and '73 Pinto only caused injuries because there was a corrupt legal system to take advantage of those products' imperfections. I agree that the class-action marketplace is rife with sleaziness, but it can be seen as just another market, no? If you don't like it, then maybe the market can perfect (protect?) itself by not selling liable products anymore. The question of truth in the courts dried up a long time ago, the game now is to have a more convincing truth than the other guy, and the science used in court works this way, too, by having to simplify the issues to the appropriateness of evidence. Dry up the class-actions by not giving the victims anything to act upon.
But I suppose that idea lives with your perfect tort system, sometime in the imaginary past.
Who's saying Microsoft is "wrong"? The parent was only stating that there is more to the story than "searches". Look at your history, for something as far-reaching as a new filesystem Microsoft is only going to highlight the most innocuous features (especially since it's illegal to figure out anything but what they tell you).
And not only that, but how many average Windows users search for anything? Maybe my friends, family, and coworkers are total lusers, but most of them have trouble with anything beyond Yahoo. If it's not in a predictable place, it's as good as gone. Okay, sure. Maybe you're talking about file-seek and directory listing type searches, but that brings us full circle to "is that really enough reason to go to all this trouble?" With Microsoft, there's always an ulterior motive.
You probably have a different sense of "security" than Microsoft does. The edict from billg was only the first step in Microsoft's embracing and extending the public's perception of computer security. It's not that MS will re-engineer their software to meet security standards derived from decades of experience, because Microsoft has never done anything like that. The closest example to this process would be the focus on Internet Explorer throughout the late '90s, where MS made strides in browser engine design, but at the expense of standards and other browser companies. Microsoft has never played nice in the sandbox (only "concessions", like today's MSKerberos story from the EU), they simply use advertising and PR to redefine "security" as "that which Microsoft provides".
"Schindler's List" deals with subject matter that benefits from more detail and illustration of the subtleties involved in negotiating survival in a tyrranical political environment (the same role that the "tons of literature..." occupies). There's no such insight to be gained from footage of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. What could be less subtle than jets flying into buildings?! Is Newsweek really a good judge of poignancy, especially since they stand to gain indirectly from continued public interest in these grotesque displays of misery that do everything but address the underlying issues contributing to the WTC disaster? Much more than a car wreck, these underlying issues are exactly what movies like "Schindler's List" are about.
...and opera also doesn't require a search box. you can type "g " into the address field for google web searches, or (in 6+) "r " to search google groups.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently you hold your "fucking program" to yourself, validating my argument. Thanks, kid!
I may have overlooked something, but it seems to me that the line should be drawn at "making it possible to choose". DirectX can more than "technically" be removed, it can be just plain removed and that shouldn't impact the rest of the OS. Why should it? I don't know where you're getting these nightmares of tyranny, nobody's saying that a list should be drawn up comprised of OS features with APPROVED and FORBIDDEN written next to them, the idea is to let people besides Microsoft determine what they want included. This is the line that seems arbitrary: that I might choose a different set of features than you.
;) graphics API. Think of (un)installable APIs like shared libs, but with Microsoft muscle behind it to make it reliable. :) Heck, I think it would be great if the APIs could be dynamically loaded, so you could have DirectX for one game, NewAPI for another game, and there would be no conflicts if they aren't loaded at the same time.
The DOS days of games weren't so bad, by far the worst were the hardware-limited days of running DOS4GL games under win3.x/95. Competing DirectX? Perhaps, but computers have enough resources these days to support more than one (non-conflicting
Hey, no need to be such a schmuck. There is no "whole story", there are only multitudes of "whole stories" complicated by facts and overlapping opinions. We each have our preferences and sympathies and, in a nutshell, this is what inscribes our political stances. Especially in D.C., the Mecca for compromisers, you're never going to find someone with whom you fully agree. To choose people who serve your purpose(s) "well enough" is about as much as you can hope for.
You're playing right into Microsoft's game: it's not the OS that would be crippled, but the *product*. Microsoft markets Windows almost as a suite of functions, and to take any of those away would necessitate their changing their marketing stragegy that has evolved over years and years. I'll repeat: Embedded Windows seems to use a modular structure much like UNIX, while consumer Windows is a branded, packaged set of functions. It would not "cripple" Windows if Media Player was de-integrated. It would not cripple Windows if Notepad was left out (edit.com is just as good ;). It *would* cripple their product vision, however, because consumers would become aware of the changes and have cause to reflect upon the usefulness of Windows as a whole. Many many people see Windows as a single entity, if they recognized that any OS is basically a hardware handler with whatever frills happen to be included (or available), then they could become smart enough to choose something else. It runs counter to an entrenched market leader's interests for people to have a benchmark to compare OSes where before there was only one OS. Users who are able to ask themselves or their friends if they really need some particular feature of what they're buying are Microsoft's nightmare.
I don't know much about the scientific community, but I'm surprised that someone would say that's AIX' only stronghold. There are tons and tons of big old databases out there running on IBM fridges, as another example, ACNielsen runs AIX.
That's why I qualified my statement with "fuzzy". Nightclubs which employ DJs are supposed to only pay BMI/ASCAP/etc. fees for "distributing" music to their patrons. It's still a murky area when profits aren't involved.
As long as the accused prostrate themselves before the RIAA, fuzzy precedents like this will become as established as any other rule of law. Of course the price of legal wrangling is prohibitive, but in case you didn't notice, ethics cost extra these days. It's a difficult situation that cuts across many extra-legal conflicts.
Why am I a consumer just because I am accessing the Internet?
It must be because you aren't advertising anything.
As long as nuclear warheads exist, this sort of research is absolutely critical, and its not anyones place to put down this research for ethical reasons related to the existance of the bomb. The two are related but totally separate, and you shouldn't cross those beams.
"Ours is not to question why..."
You're using circular logic. There's no reason nuclear warheads can't be decommissioned, except for politics. Ethics are necessary to break the cycle.
Oh it is. The simulations are designed to leave untouched the people who are the same color as the computer.
I use Opera for 99% of my browsing primarily for its annoyance-abatement features, but for some things -- like OWA -- there is no substitute for a plain, dumb browser. Unless pop-ups in email are a big problem for you, it seems to work.
The root DNS servers aren't all *run* by one company. They are all run by a variety of voluteers who work for different companies and can't be said to have the same opinion of Verisign or whoever is governing the TLDs these days.
I thought Spamcop was a good idea until I realized that spammers were including the To: addresses in the bodies of spam. This is roughly equivalent to just replying to the email, since many times complaints will make it back to the spammers. I don't use them anymore.
Why would "advertising professionals" pay lots of money to look at other peoples' commercials? Research? Historical reference? I guess, but I don't buy it. Which ad-pro role would be responsible for using this site, the CEO? The intern? Advertising people tend to know what has come before and what else is out there, since...you know...it's their job and stuff.
Advertising is about differentiation and identity, and unless New-AdCritic is aiming at the lowest common denominator AdCritic isn't going to be able to differentiate their own selves from basic TV (HBO/PayTV with commercials, but without content. SIGN ME UP!). The real point of this is that they're saying that "AdCritic is coming back...for a fee". That's all. Everything else is speculation on the demand they hope to plug into. Perhaps they'll try and snag a billionth of the advertising data market, but I'd say it's more likely that lusers will have access for a subscription fee and the advertising professionals will pay through the nose to get a peek at the demographics of commercial viewers. Gotta love that registration data, and I bet all of this would still come prepackaged with banner ads! If history is any indication and they latch onto the sales/marketing dweeb stereotype, they're overstating their importance and hoping that they can make *any* money off of people watching commercials and only commercials and telling their friends about commercials for hours on end.
Privacy policies are not there to guarantee your privacy, they are used to tell you how little you have. The tone is invariably one of agression: "This is what we will do with your information, like it or lump it. P.S. We will change this if we want."
Well if you read the article, it's apparent that it isn't "system files" but configuration or log files for the other program. I'm wondering if the spyware actually goes into the counterspy directory and modifies stuff there, which seems like what's happening. What if you install Mutt or Emacs, and as part of the install process they break PINE or vi (respectively, and intentionally)?
Certainly a court case can be made for one company modifying the files of the other's software. Leaving alone the obviously bad programming practice of having critical files able to be overwritten or appended to, it sucks that the courts would be the only recourse for something like this.
Why do so many on Slashdot people feel compelled to write FUD about Java just because it's not GPL?
Aside from you pulling that GPL crack out of your ass (your comment's parent didn't mention the GPL once), there seems to be plenty of room for criticism of Sun's relationship with Java and OSS. Want to install the JDK on FreeBSD? Be sure to a)install a GUI; b)install a browser that works with the various linking methods that Sun uses; c) register for a sun.com account and waste time telling Sun important things like your address; d) log in; e)Agree to the SCSL; f)download something that says "Linux" in the name (there are very few references to FreeBSD at Sun, and none in the JDK download section); g)manually download the source file; h)Agree to a license *again*; i) etc...
Leave it to Sun to infect FreeBSD with the Microsoft-style inefficiencies that FBSD has been so good at distancing itself from. It's not about the GPL, it's about Sun and the way they treat people who aren't their cheerleaders. Being an employee of wide-line Java shop, you probably don't have occasion to relate to that.
It's just another instance of people wanting to be led, rather than living their own lives and making up their own minds. Subsuming thought under a static structure like religion, patriotism, sports, etc.
Well gee, could that be because the companies won't be honest on their own? You play your cards like the market is in this perfect state when the silly tort system is doing its job, but is dragged down by increasing abuses by victims and law firms. Perhaps we can place ourselves in an equally untenable position by saying that we'd have a perfectly functioning tort system if all these sleazy companies weren't getting in the way. Not much of an improvement? Of course not, because blaming one for the others' ills ignores the role of the other.
Oh, for the days of yore and their perfect tort system! How we miss them so! Was this the perfect tort system that tempered the desires of the robber barons? Is it the perfect tort system that instituted the 40-hour workweek? Frankly, I don't remember. Your "consumers and 401(k) stockholders" are minor players in the corporate value (and law) game, which is largely out of the hands of the majority of the population. Perhaps the lawyers have bought off the Democratic Party, who has bought off the Republicans? Not our beautiful market, which struggles against predators EVERY DAY to provide sunshine and lollipops through a minefield of lawsuits and market forces. Seemingly by your reasoning, the Dalkon shield and '73 Pinto only caused injuries because there was a corrupt legal system to take advantage of those products' imperfections. I agree that the class-action marketplace is rife with sleaziness, but it can be seen as just another market, no? If you don't like it, then maybe the market can perfect (protect?) itself by not selling liable products anymore. The question of truth in the courts dried up a long time ago, the game now is to have a more convincing truth than the other guy, and the science used in court works this way, too, by having to simplify the issues to the appropriateness of evidence. Dry up the class-actions by not giving the victims anything to act upon.
But I suppose that idea lives with your perfect tort system, sometime in the imaginary past.
what other platforms does FreeBSD run on?
Who's saying Microsoft is "wrong"? The parent was only stating that there is more to the story than "searches". Look at your history, for something as far-reaching as a new filesystem Microsoft is only going to highlight the most innocuous features (especially since it's illegal to figure out anything but what they tell you).
And not only that, but how many average Windows users search for anything? Maybe my friends, family, and coworkers are total lusers, but most of them have trouble with anything beyond Yahoo. If it's not in a predictable place, it's as good as gone. Okay, sure. Maybe you're talking about file-seek and directory listing type searches, but that brings us full circle to "is that really enough reason to go to all this trouble?" With Microsoft, there's always an ulterior motive.
You probably have a different sense of "security" than Microsoft does. The edict from billg was only the first step in Microsoft's embracing and extending the public's perception of computer security. It's not that MS will re-engineer their software to meet security standards derived from decades of experience, because Microsoft has never done anything like that. The closest example to this process would be the focus on Internet Explorer throughout the late '90s, where MS made strides in browser engine design, but at the expense of standards and other browser companies. Microsoft has never played nice in the sandbox (only "concessions", like today's MSKerberos story from the EU), they simply use advertising and PR to redefine "security" as "that which Microsoft provides".
"Schindler's List" deals with subject matter that benefits from more detail and illustration of the subtleties involved in negotiating survival in a tyrranical political environment (the same role that the "tons of literature..." occupies). There's no such insight to be gained from footage of people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. What could be less subtle than jets flying into buildings?! Is Newsweek really a good judge of poignancy, especially since they stand to gain indirectly from continued public interest in these grotesque displays of misery that do everything but address the underlying issues contributing to the WTC disaster? Much more than a car wreck, these underlying issues are exactly what movies like "Schindler's List" are about.
...and opera also doesn't require a search box. you can type "g " into the address field for google web searches, or (in 6+) "r " to search google groups.