"Windows 8 competes with Windows 7 and they have to allow users to upgrade with an old PC. It would be stupid to implement an OS that requires a Secure Boot mode, because it would mean that mean that users would have to buy new hardware."
First off, you forget that secure boot requires the hardware and the OS to work together. You have to have the secure boot feature as an integral part of your motherboard. At the moment, I think there is not any such hardware. So here is the question... How do you get Win 8 secure boot to work on older (present) computers? Answer, you don't! The upgrade version of Win 8 will not have secure boot working. It's only future computers that would have a version of Win 8 with a working secure boot.
There might be a more nefarious reason for the physical mailings. You see, they might only have your expected name and address. Physical mailings will allow FaceBook to add your EXACT name and address to their database. If they didn't have it before, they surely have it now!
I think the original poster is looking at it from the wrong perspective. Often academic research papers are about a new technique and any accompanying software is rather rough from a user standpoint. Such software in not intended to be marketed to the masses but rather to demonstrate that the idea is sound. Business then takes ( licenses ) these ideas, improves on them and produces something that they can sell. Just because academia doesn't directly market software doesn't mean that their contribution to development is small. How many of the products we use today are based upon some academic research?
I did have a college physics covering relativity but it was a long time ago. Correct me if I am wrong, but Einsteins Special Relativity theory doesn't prohibit speeds faster than light. It just prohibits speeds EQUAL to the speed of light. If so, It would be problematic to accelerate past the speed pf light or to decelerate to slower than the speed of light.
Stopping dual boot or changing the OS by users would stop the market penetration by Linux. Maybe the knowledgeable Linux crowd might build their own computers but this is beyond the capacity of probably 99% of computer users. Market penetration by a competing OS would be stopped cold which is what MS wants. They want to stop the downward slide of Windows. Yes, Linux has a very small share of the OS market, but what about some new and different OS that is developed in the future. This would stop them from even starting. It's not just about Linux.
I only have one question for all who cry "class warfare". Where are all those cries when programs that benefit only the wealthy at the expense of the poor are proposed. Class warfare isn't just a one way street, it goes both ways. You may say that benefits that favor the rich will "trickle down" and create jobs but we all know that most of the jobs created are in China and India. If job creation is the goal, why not tie any benefits to actual DOMESTIC job creation. If DOMESTIC jobs are not created, no tax cuts for you. If you cut DOMESTIC jobs, your taxes should go up.
The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber did not board planes in the US. The US was the destination, thus the TSA airport screeners were not involved. Also, the other plots were foiled before the terrorists even got to the airport, thus the TSA airport screeners were again not involved. Get your facts right!
That is an interesting question. I don't know what can be made out by the military spy sattelites but my experiencr with Google maps is this. I can clearly make out who has and has not a backyard fence in my subdivision. Also I was a backpacker and knew exactly where some foot paths were. I could detect some of them in a Google maps satellite picture. By the way, these paths were not very heavily traveled (they were in the Wind River Range) and the paths were sometimes hard to follow at ground level.
"Mica seems to agree with other TSA critics that the agency 'failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years."
Not that I am a big fan of the TSA but one thing should be pointed out. Failure to detect a threat does not mean if was unsuccessful at finding a threat. There might not have been any credible threats to find. There is a problem in failing many tests of security and he should have pointed at that instead.
All of these "look and feel" lawsuits should be outlawed. I heard a story about such a lawsuit over the control\s of a car. It was in the very early days of the car industry and there were many different ways of controlling a car. Some cars used a tiller stick similar to many small sailboats. Others used a combination of sticks which can still be seen in some bulldozers. And then there was the steering wheel. The public liked that and other car companies duplicates the "look and feel" of the steering wheel but implemented it in different ways. The original company tried to sue in court but was unsuccessful.
Can you imagine the chaos if every brand of cars had to be controlled in a completely different way? Computer and other device should take this lesson to heart. Order is what makes a market thrive. Computer on whether your device is intrinsically better. Spend those dollars (or euros) on making your product better.
"2) Have enough guns that nobody can question your sovereignty. If you have a powerful enough military, it doesn't matter what other nations want to say, you are sovereign by the fact that they won't do anything about it."
And there is the problem! To get a large enough arsenal to ward off the likes of the US or Royal navy (or any other force worthy of the name "navy") you are going to have to pay something akin to taxes. We all know how libertarians feel about any form of taxation. Voluntary contribution you say? It just will not raise enough revenue. They will be "hoisted on their own petard".
At first thought, this seems to be a good idea but precautions must be followed. How many people will use this system without making the necessary alterations to your house circuit box? I had an emergency power generator and made the needed changes to disconnect the house from the power companies lines when the generator is being used. Without these changes, the generator (or electric car) will push the electricity out to the power grid. What a lineman (repairing downed wires) considers to be a dead wire could be energized by your emergency generattor.
Like many things, it is only a good idea if certain precautions are taken.
I am surprised that there are not many comments about the amount of storage that would need. If EVERY packet that [asses through an ISP in the US was kept for 18 months. How many storage would be needed. Of course, the ISP would pass that extra cost on to the consumer. Internet connections in the US are expensive enough without adding the cost of that.
By the way, It is my opinion you can't convince the "think of the children" crowd on legal matters. They don't care if a proposed law might be unconstitutional, they will try to pass it anyways . If you mention how expensive the proposed law would be, there might be a chance of torpedoing the proposed law.
Harry Chapin touched on that subject in his song "Bananas". It was a formula for a hit country-western song. In it it said you had to mention motherhood, infidelity (hurting songs), and trucks. He also said that you needed a fiddle, steel guitar and it also helped to have a choir ( the audience - aka he Mormon Tubercular Choir ). The resulting song was rather funny.
While your comments about the Richelieu quote are basically correct there is a totally different issue at the heart of the matter.
A forgery in an electronic media can be easily detected. Even if there are not ways to prevent a forgery it can easily be detected by taking the alleged forgery and doing an electronic search through the 24,000 pages of the original disclosure to see if it can be found in it. If it can't be found, it probably is a forgery.
Now take the paper version of the original documents that they released. These are printed copies and probably use a generic print font. As such, a forgery using the same font can be produced. Yes, it will eventually be found to be a forgery, but by the time that mountain of printed documents is entirely read it will b e too late. The forgery will have time to take on a life of its own. That is the issue, it will take much more time to detect a forgery on paper than in an electronic document.
The real problem is defense contractors that have all sorts of classified material on their computers. We could spent billions on defense related R&D and some third rate country might get that data and even might destroy our copy of the data while they are at it. Or even better, put a hidden bug in the design that will cause us grief when we try to use it in battle. (Of course, it could remain inactive until it is activated by an enemy.)
" how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war.."
How is this any different from the current situation? The US went to war in Iraq on the flimsiest of pretexts. The Bush administration ginned up the supposed threat that Iraq would have nuclear weapons in a very short time and we had to act NOW! Are we to start a war because we think that a hacking attack is immanent?
At least in the US, laws have been en acted to prevent GM content of foods. There are also laws against labeling non-GM foods that say only non-GM foods are used. The corporations praise the virtues of consumers making informed choices about what to buy. At the same time, they prevent the consumer from making an informed choice by keeping relevant information from them.
While revising the US Tax Code seems like a good idea, any attempt is doomed to an ultimate failure. Even if a "perfect" fix is found and enacted, the lobbyists and the Congress-critters they own will put back their favorite tax breaks. It happened in the 80s and all the tax code fixes before that. Often the tax breaks that they will put back in will be worse than the ones that the tax code fix eliminated.
Why not try generating energy from the body heat? I'm not a medical researcher but wouldn't this be reasonable? If they can get electricity from light why can't they do the same with heat?
Your reasoning about newbies is flawed. Some newbies will remain newbies. I know, one is a friend is One. I convinced her to try Unbuntu when her computer became so trashed with viruses (It was hopeless!). I almost regretted helping her switch. For two months she was calling me for help with little stuff. I now got her computer to the point where she is satisfied and no longer calling for help. I just dread the day when an update switches her desktop to Unity. I have warned her not to have anything to do with Unity because the trouble will start again! Some newbies just want to remain newbies.
Unbuntu will never hit that target if they continue to push that Unity stuff down the throat of their user base. I'm a Unbuntu user and would like it if they gave a choice at upgrade time. Unity could be a choice (even the default choice) but they make it hard to install a different desktop. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get other than Unity.
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"Windows 8 competes with Windows 7 and they have to allow users to upgrade with an old PC. It would be stupid to implement an OS that requires a Secure Boot mode, because it would mean that mean that users would have to buy new hardware."
First off, you forget that secure boot requires the hardware and the OS to work together. You have to have the secure boot feature as an integral part of your motherboard. At the moment, I think there is not any such hardware. So here is the question... How do you get Win 8 secure boot to work on older (present) computers? Answer, you don't! The upgrade version of Win 8 will not have secure boot working. It's only future computers that would have a version of Win 8 with a working secure boot.
There might be a more nefarious reason for the physical mailings. You see, they might only have your expected name and address. Physical mailings will allow FaceBook to add your EXACT name and address to their database. If they didn't have it before, they surely have it now!
I think the original poster is looking at it from the wrong perspective. Often academic research papers are about a new technique and any accompanying software is rather rough from a user standpoint. Such software in not intended to be marketed to the masses but rather to demonstrate that the idea is sound. Business then takes ( licenses ) these ideas, improves on them and produces something that they can sell. Just because academia doesn't directly market software doesn't mean that their contribution to development is small. How many of the products we use today are based upon some academic research?
I did have a college physics covering relativity but it was a long time ago. Correct me if I am wrong, but Einsteins Special Relativity theory doesn't prohibit speeds faster than light. It just prohibits speeds EQUAL to the speed of light. If so, It would be problematic to accelerate past the speed pf light or to decelerate to slower than the speed of light.
Stopping dual boot or changing the OS by users would stop the market penetration by Linux. Maybe the knowledgeable Linux crowd might build their own computers but this is beyond the capacity of probably 99% of computer users. Market penetration by a competing OS would be stopped cold which is what MS wants. They want to stop the downward slide of Windows. Yes, Linux has a very small share of the OS market, but what about some new and different OS that is developed in the future. This would stop them from even starting. It's not just about Linux.
I only have one question for all who cry "class warfare". Where are all those cries when programs that benefit only the wealthy at the expense of the poor are proposed. Class warfare isn't just a one way street, it goes both ways. You may say that benefits that favor the rich will "trickle down" and create jobs but we all know that most of the jobs created are in China and India. If job creation is the goal, why not tie any benefits to actual DOMESTIC job creation. If DOMESTIC jobs are not created, no tax cuts for you. If you cut DOMESTIC jobs, your taxes should go up.
The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber did not board planes in the US. The US was the destination, thus the TSA airport screeners were not involved. Also, the other plots were foiled before the terrorists even got to the airport, thus the TSA airport screeners were again not involved. Get your facts right!
That is an interesting question. I don't know what can be made out by the military spy sattelites but my experiencr with Google maps is this. I can clearly make out who has and has not a backyard fence in my subdivision. Also I was a backpacker and knew exactly where some foot paths were. I could detect some of them in a Google maps satellite picture. By the way, these paths were not very heavily traveled (they were in the Wind River Range) and the paths were sometimes hard to follow at ground level.
What about the 9/11 hijackers? It was private screeners that let them on the planes.
"Mica seems to agree with other TSA critics that the agency 'failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years."
Not that I am a big fan of the TSA but one thing should be pointed out. Failure to detect a threat does not mean if was unsuccessful at finding a threat. There might not have been any credible threats to find. There is a problem in failing many tests of security and he should have pointed at that instead.
The second from last sentence should be...
"Compete on whether your device is intrinsically better. "
The spell checker came up and I accidentally clicked of the wrong choice.
Mea culpa! ("My fault" for those who do not know Latin.)
All of these "look and feel" lawsuits should be outlawed. I heard a story about such a lawsuit over the control\s of a car. It was in the very early days of the car industry and there were many different ways of controlling a car. Some cars used a tiller stick similar to many small sailboats. Others used a combination of sticks which can still be seen in some bulldozers. And then there was the steering wheel. The public liked that and other car companies duplicates the "look and feel" of the steering wheel but implemented it in different ways. The original company tried to sue in court but was unsuccessful.
Can you imagine the chaos if every brand of cars had to be controlled in a completely different way? Computer and other device should take this lesson to heart. Order is what makes a market thrive. Computer on whether your device is intrinsically better. Spend those dollars (or euros) on making your product better.
"2) Have enough guns that nobody can question your sovereignty. If you have a powerful enough military, it doesn't matter what other nations want to say, you are sovereign by the fact that they won't do anything about it."
And there is the problem! To get a large enough arsenal to ward off the likes of the US or Royal navy (or any other force worthy of the name "navy") you are going to have to pay something akin to taxes. We all know how libertarians feel about any form of taxation. Voluntary contribution you say? It just will not raise enough revenue. They will be "hoisted on their own petard".
At first thought, this seems to be a good idea but precautions must be followed. How many people will use this system without making the necessary alterations to your house circuit box? I had an emergency power generator and made the needed changes to disconnect the house from the power companies lines when the generator is being used. Without these changes, the generator (or electric car) will push the electricity out to the power grid. What a lineman (repairing downed wires) considers to be a dead wire could be energized by your emergency generattor.
Like many things, it is only a good idea if certain precautions are taken.
I am surprised that there are not many comments about the amount of storage that would need. If EVERY packet that [asses through an ISP in the US was kept for 18 months. How many storage would be needed. Of course, the ISP would pass that extra cost on to the consumer. Internet connections in the US are expensive enough without adding the cost of that.
By the way, It is my opinion you can't convince the "think of the children" crowd on legal matters. They don't care if a proposed law might be unconstitutional, they will try to pass it anyways . If you mention how expensive the proposed law would be, there might be a chance of torpedoing the proposed law.
Harry Chapin touched on that subject in his song "Bananas". It was a formula for a hit country-western song. In it it said you had to mention motherhood, infidelity (hurting songs), and trucks. He also said that you needed a fiddle, steel guitar and it also helped to have a choir ( the audience - aka he Mormon Tubercular Choir ). The resulting song was rather funny.
"Harry, IT SUCKS!"
While your comments about the Richelieu quote are basically correct there is a totally different issue at the heart of the matter.
A forgery in an electronic media can be easily detected. Even if there are not ways to prevent a forgery it can easily be detected by taking the alleged forgery and doing an electronic search through the 24,000 pages of the original disclosure to see if it can be found in it. If it can't be found, it probably is a forgery.
Now take the paper version of the original documents that they released. These are printed copies and probably use a generic print font. As such, a forgery using the same font can be produced. Yes, it will eventually be found to be a forgery, but by the time that mountain of printed documents is entirely read it will b e too late. The forgery will have time to take on a life of its own. That is the issue, it will take much more time to detect a forgery on paper than in an electronic document.
The real problem is defense contractors that have all sorts of classified material on their computers. We could spent billions on defense related R&D and some third rate country might get that data and even might destroy our copy of the data while they are at it. Or even better, put a hidden bug in the design that will cause us grief when we try to use it in battle. (Of course, it could remain inactive until it is activated by an enemy.)
" how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war. ."
How is this any different from the current situation? The US went to war in Iraq on the flimsiest of pretexts. The Bush administration ginned up the supposed threat that Iraq would have nuclear weapons in a very short time and we had to act NOW! Are we to start a war because we think that a hacking attack is immanent?
Woops! I actually meant in the first sentence to read...
At least in the US, laws have been enacted to prevent the labeling about GM content of foods.
(I pressed the "submit" button instead of the "continue editing" button.)
The problem with your reasoning is this...
At least in the US, laws have been en acted to prevent GM content of foods. There are also laws against labeling non-GM foods that say only non-GM foods are used. The corporations praise the virtues of consumers making informed choices about what to buy. At the same time, they prevent the consumer from making an informed choice by keeping relevant information from them.
While revising the US Tax Code seems like a good idea, any attempt is doomed to an ultimate failure. Even if a "perfect" fix is found and enacted, the lobbyists and the Congress-critters they own will put back their favorite tax breaks. It happened in the 80s and all the tax code fixes before that. Often the tax breaks that they will put back in will be worse than the ones that the tax code fix eliminated.
Why not try generating energy from the body heat? I'm not a medical researcher but wouldn't this be reasonable? If they can get electricity from light why can't they do the same with heat?
Your reasoning about newbies is flawed. Some newbies will remain newbies. I know, one is a friend is One. I convinced her to try Unbuntu when her computer became so trashed with viruses (It was hopeless!). I almost regretted helping her switch. For two months she was calling me for help with little stuff. I now got her computer to the point where she is satisfied and no longer calling for help. I just dread the day when an update switches her desktop to Unity. I have warned her not to have anything to do with Unity because the trouble will start again! Some newbies just want to remain newbies.
Unbuntu will never hit that target if they continue to push that Unity stuff down the throat of their user base. I'm a Unbuntu user and would like it if they gave a choice at upgrade time. Unity could be a choice (even the default choice) but they make it hard to install a different desktop. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get other than Unity.