The problem is not that most people don't know what netscape/mozilla is.
The problem is that most people don't know what a browser is. My secretary sure doesn't. I'm not sure she even knows what the Internet is beyond some vague notions that it's "out there" somewhere, and that she gets to it whenever she double-clicks the shortcuts I set up on her computer.
Trying to convince her to switch browsers would be like trying to convince my wife to use a different brand of antifreeze. Even on the off-chance she knew what it was, there's no chance in hell she'd ever care.
How much does Windows/Office/etc. retail for in Taiwan
A quick search turns up Office XP prices running in the $NT18,000 - $19,000 range for a new user. With current exchange rates hovering around NT$35 to US$1, that makes Office XP more expensive in Taiwan than MS's own MSRP of US$479. Prices in the PRC are in the same ballpark -- which translates there to roughly two months' laborer's wages. And MS wonders why piracy rates are so high.
She doesn't understand the guff that American's have about copywright issues. Is this the consensus of Asian culture?
Not sure precisely what your professor meant. However, there is quite a large gap between their respective citizenries' conceptions of intellectual property rights and, say, Microsoft's. Basically, the reasoning goes, having shelled out the bucks for the CD, it's mine to do with as I choose: buy once, run everywhere. The whole notion of 'licensing' software just seems to slide right off the public conciousness.
One must also not underestimate the influence of MS pricing policies. When I went hunting for a new PC recently, every package included the full suite of MS software -- always pirated. There wasn't a store to be found that included legitimate software; with razor-thin profit margins, the price gouge would put them out of business. In short, Taiwan cannot afford Microsoft.
Taiwan has signed to the Berne Convention finally, then?
Not sure on this. However, as a member of the World Trade Organization, Taiwan is subject to international IP agreements. In addition, Taiwan has been trying to clear itself from the US '301' list -- which carries the threat of trade sanctions -- by cracking down on rampant piracy.
countries where this kind of thing will not be tolerated by the public at large
Trust me, there aren't any. Taiwanese, for example, love the idea of cameras monitoring one's every move. For Taiwanese, security trumps privacy any day of the week.
If it's tolerated in America, where privacy is so highly valued, it's tolerated everywhere else, too.
sometimes a toaster is just a toaster. We don't need 'super appliances' that think
No? Imagine the toaster that can brown your toast to perfection, with no user intervention required. White, whole wheat, rye, thin-sliced, thick-sliced, wheat-thins, leavened or unleavened. The toaster automatically senses what you put in, remembers YOUR idea of perfection (no more arguing with the wife over who left the toaster set to "dark"; it was probably you anyway), and suddenly "burnt to a crisp" becomes something that used to happen to your grandparents.
Now take another step back. Anyone who's ever tried to put together a gourmet meal in his own kitchen can tell you by far the hardest part is the timing -- getting the pheasant under glass, the beef souffle, the Stove Top stuffing -- AND the toast -- all finished at the same time.
Now imagine a wired kitchen. Pop the turkey roast in the oven, the frozen veggies in the nuker, the whole wheat in the toaster, and tell your kitchen you want all the accessories to be ready at the same time as the bird. The oven, monitoring the turkey, informs the nuker when there's seven minutes to go so the nuker knows when to start defrosting. At the 45 second mark the toaster kicks in, and 45 seconds later you have a turkey roasted to perfection, veggies steaming hot, and golden brown toast all waiting together. And the whole time you were watching WWF re-runs in the living room.
Course, that's not to mention that your oven knows seventy three different ways to roast duck, a hundred and seven ways to bake a cake, and three hundred and twelve ways to broil salmon, all courtesy of your DSL Internet connection. Throw in a two-job, on-the-go family with no time to spend deciphering recipe books, and calling this kind of self-orchestrating, fully-automated kitchen "marketable" would be the understatement of the millenium.
they would suffer from the vcr problem of being too complicated to use/control/program and most people would be stuck with the factory settings that they might not like.
Just the opposite. Imagine a VCR networked with a time server, and that flashing "12:00" goes the way of burned toast (see above). Imagine a VCR that connects to an online database of TV schedules, and you'll never accidentally tape the wrong channel -- or the right channel at the wrong time -- again. Want more? Imagine a VCR that knows you never miss Babylon Five and considerately tapes tonight's episode for you even though you forgot to tell it to do so. Imagine a VCR that automatically adjusts to last minute schedule changes. Imagine a networked VCR that, connecting to an online database, can not only confirm that yes you did see that actress in another movie just last week, but even show you the scene. Imagine stumbling into the middle of an interesting movie on HBO and wishing you'd caught the whole thing. Pas de problem for your VCR -- just tell it to record the next occurance; you don't even need to know when it is. The VCR will inform you when the task is accomplished -- or tell you exactly which local video stores stock it if you just can't wait. Imagine a VCR that monitors your viewing habits so that it can flag upcoming events of potential interest.
Keeping tabs on 300 million US citizens is well-nigh impossible... Now imagine this extended to several hundred BILLION consumer goods.
You're assuming some sort of gigantic centralized government database. But there are other possibilities.
Merchants will tag their inventory to protect themselves from theft, then log the inventory's movement on premises. Once you leave the store with it, your presence is detected by the local street safety patrol's monitors tracking you by your driver's license, until you enter your next destination, say the local pub. Inside the pub, you pay -- cash -- for a quick stimulant, with the cash register reading the embedded chip (which marks the bill as genuine with a unique serial number) and noting (courtesy of a tie-in to the IRS database which tracks all currency movement for tax assessment purpose) that you received that bill as change at the local florist's.
Next stop is a quick drive to your mother's to drop off her Mother's Day flowers, while the local security firm you pay to track the whereabouts of your late-model sportster registers your every turn.
Of course, Ma Bell also monitors your every step via your GPS-enabled cellphone so it can conveniently bombard you with advertising from whatever local business you're happening by at the moment.
I mean, it's sorta fun to think that the government/corporations/whoever really cares about me individually, and is devoting massive amounts of manpower and/or computer resources to tracking my shopping habits, but.. why would they bother?
You get the picture. No, there won't be a single centralized database monitoring every aspect of your life, but rather a myriad of local databases tracking just that portion of your activities in which it has a vested interest. Tying it all together later would require nothing more than a simple court warrant and an Internet connection. Or, I'm sure, private investigators could provide the same service for a fee.
Peck notes that... the Catholic Church met most of these criteria
So does Nazi Germany, for that matter, or Iraq. Of course, many if not most of Peck's ten criteria are open for debate, at least in their application. For example, vis a vis the Catholic Church:
1. Idolatry of a single leader - did he have in mind here the Pope or Christ?
2. A revered inner circle - presumably, say, Cardinals, or the Vatican? Or does he mean local parish councils?
3. Secrecy of management - this could apply to any privately-held business - minutes of board meetings aren't released, business practices are locked away as "trade secrets", and any given management decision is not generally made available to the public. By comparison, one might argue the Catholic Church's management procedures and structures are quite open.
4. Financial evasiveness - Every parish I've ever belonged to releases full parish financials at least once a year, fully audited by independent reviewers. No comparison here to, say, the CoS.
5. Dependency - all of us experience a broad range of dependencies in our lives. It's part of our natures. At what point does one cross that invisible line between normal and abnormal dependency? Certainly religious people are dependent on religion for a part of their emotional well-being. How does one decide when that becomes abnormal and unhealthy?
6. Conformity - ANY association to which one belongs exhibits a certain amount of conformity - right down to your bowling league uniforms. Anyone who has ever been a teenager can tell you about pressures to conform. Again, where's the line?
7. Special language - well, ANY religion has its own set of jargon. So does the local chess club. I assume here Peck has in mind special SECRET language which is open only to the initiated?
8. Dogmatic doctrine - EVERY major - and most minor - religion is guilty on this point.
9. Heresy - Heresy is not defined in a vacuum. Does Peck here mean the cult's teachings are heretical? As compared against what? "Established religions"? On that criterion the Catholic Church is by definition not the standard, not the heresy. Or does he mean the cult defines what it heretical? In that case, this is just the flip side of dogmatic doctrine.
10. God in captivity - Does Peck mean by this there is nothing about God that the cult doesn't know, that all that is knowable about God is known by the cult (leaving room for the transcendence of God), or merely that ONLY the cult has reliable knowledge about God? These are widely differing claims.
There are some interesting cultic elements that don't seem to make Peck's list, as well. Such as tight control over the members' lives -- from social relationships to the member's information sources, to assignment of spousal relationships, to the controlling of members' finances. A siege mentality -- a small band of believers surrounded by a hostile world -- which leads either to an overly-fanatical emphasis on proselytism, or a withdrawal from the world. A pervasive emphasis on apocalyptic imagery and a belief in the imminent arrival of the "end times". A special gnosis -- or secret knowledge -- available only to the "initiated" (I suspect Peck was trying to get at something like this in points 8 and 10). And so on.
While an point of departure for discussion purposes, Peck's criterion are not the final word on the matter.
You are right, dishonesty doesn't have a correlation to age.
You're both wrong. While this is not to say dishonesty doesn't exist at all age levels, as any decent sociologist will tell you youth (particularly in the 15-24 year old age bracket) are more prone to criminal behavior. Crime rates drop off dramatically after that.
cutting down on the amount of money that is handled cuts down on theft
Admittedly, this comes from someone who has never worked in a grocery store, but don't most stores keep a pretty close eye on cash register draw balances? Seems to me it would be much easier to make off with store merchandise than cash out of your drawer. Which, if true, means this won't have a major impact on employee theft.
If you think MS lawyers would nix this you're sadly mistaken.
I was referring specifically to the statement regarding "owning" the software. The EULA specifically, and with great emphasis, states you do NOT own the software -- you LICENSE it -- specifically so that MS retains control over it. As soon as an MS lawyer claps eyes on that all hell's gonna break loose in Redmond. There is no way in hell MS would ever admit you OWN their software. It would be the end of their business model.
wouldn't Microsoft's bundling of the PC and license prove the school system right in this case?
One would think so, wouldn't one? But not in a Microsoft world. Microsoft insists on seeing the physical license. No license means non-compliance, time to cough up. What this means is that in the future schools will be forced to stop accepting donations unaccompanied by the proper license. What a shame.
I'm just glad I live in a country beyond the graspings of Microsoft.
these are people who knowingly are installing massive amounts of software that is not licensed.
Seems unlikely, since every PC the VA bought undoubtedly came preinstalled with a licensed Windows OS, and probably Office as well. Which is more likely: that the VA knowingly mass installed thousands of illegal copies of MS products, or that it misplaced the licenses?
If it was just stupidity, they certainly disguised it with lots of official sounding blah-diddy-blah.
I've no doubt Microsoft is more than capable of nefariousness, but I don't think this site is a case of that. I think this is just incompetence disguised as valid legal mumbo-jumbo. I'm still convinced the statement about owning licensed software would not be there if this site had passed by the eyes of at least one upper-management PHB or legal-type before being put up for public consumption. Microsoft may be malicious, but that just doesn't strike me as an admission Microsoft would make even on its most malevolent day. It pulls the rug out from under their entire business model.
that they're not doing it here shows that they are intentionally trying to mislead people
Someone once said, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." Or if someone didn't say it, he should have.
Please, folks. This is not some nefarious Redmondian plot. It's simply a case of some middle-management MS trog going live with a website without running it by the legal department first. Had the MS legal eagles clapped eyes on this concoction before it debuted, there's no way that statement about "owning" licensed software ever would have seen the light of day.
This is just some Redmond lackey trying to explain the OEM OS license in public-speak and horribly mangling it in the process. This mysterious much-maligned Microsoft minion is not malicious, just misinformed.
Before we all get our undies in a bundle, I suggest everyone calm down, count to ten, wait a couple of days and then check the site again. I all but guarantee it will either be gone, or at least substantially reworded to conform much closer to legal realities.
Netscape should have made Navigator the best browser for Macintosh
Lest you forget, Apple considered making Netscape the default browser. MS threatened to pull the next version of MacOffice if that happened. Not surprisingly, it didn't happen.
Amiga, BeOS... Unix, Sega Saturn
Which, all together had a combined marketshare of -- what, 0.5%? Now there's a piece of pie worth chasing.
Linux
Umm, dude. Netscape does make a version for Linux.
It's non-trivial only because MS made it so. And that was one of the points of the trial, that there was no necessity for MS to integrate IE in the manner it did -- mixed haphazardly with all sorts of non-browser functionality such that removal of IE-related DLLs also broke other OS components. MS could just as easily have isolated the browser and HTML-rendering in separate DLLs without adverse effect on the OS; that it chose not to was for monopolistic, not technical, reasons. I hope the courts grant the states' request and order MS to modularize the OS. MS made its bed, maybe the courts will make Gates sleep in it.
There is no technical reason why MS couldn't have designed its OSes with greater modularity -- and in fact for maintenance and upgrade purposes it would have been better had it done so. MS's purpose seems to be to make IE unremovable simply so that it can claim IE is unremovable. If Microsoft can get away with bolting the browser to the OS, then Media Player is next (goodbye RealPlayer; nice knowin' ya Quicktime), followed by text-to-speech renderers (so sorry ViaVoice), online financial transacting functionality (adios, Quicken, hello MS tax), MS-TCP/IP (good riddance, Internet), ad nauseum.
if I was writing a media player application for Windows, I'd expect the Media Player components to be there
But does it have to be Microsoft's DLLs? Modularity, couple with a published API, would assure developers of the presence of standardized multimedia functionality, but would give end-users free choice.
Netscape would, essentially, like to make life difficult for developers by making them develop and test with multiple HTML renderers/browser components
Assuming all renderers complied with an industry standard (say, W3C), what does the developer care whose renderer is being invoked? There is a lot MS could do to play nice with the rest of the industry, unless Redmond is admitting its programmers are incapable of solving whatever technical hurdles might lie in the way of such a goal.
Per the website this thing uses a color reflective TFT display, apparently similar to the iPAQ, which scares me a bit. I've gone through two iPAQs. The first display broke when I dropped it. Despite being much more careful with the second, I took it out of my jacket pocket one day and found the display cracked anyway -- despite its being kept at all times in a custom case with protective cover.
If the 5500 uses the same screen, I don't think I'm interested.
If scientists manage to create amino acids, or life in a test environment, you will have proven creation not evolution.
I'm not sure. If science manages to create a very artificial environment within which they're somehow able to coax life into existence then, yes, you might be right. But if if it can be demonstrated that those were precisely the conditions and circumstances that existed on a primordial earth, I'm not sure I agree. In that case, scientists would not be creating artificial conditions, simply carefully reproducing conditions that had already occurred naturally.
In essence, the scientists are then the trancendent entity that created life.
The problem is we needed to use the word "create" with greater precision. "Creation" can be understood in two senses: 1) creatio ex nihilo, or creation by fiat from nothing. And 2) a derivative creation, in which something is created from previously existing materials. Human beings are masters of the latter; only God is capbable of the former.
Assuming humans eventually succeed in producing life by reproducing the conditions under which it (presumably spontaneously) originated doesn't de facto disprove intelligent design. Scientists are not trying to disprove God; they're simply trying to better understand the conditions and processes that led to the emergence of life.
I suspect that once science manages to create life, we'll simply be right back at ground zero in the whole creationist debate. Non-theistic evolutionists will claim they've disproven God. Creationists and theistic evolutionists will continue to argue that reproducing the primordial conditions does not in itself prove that those conditions could have arisen as simply a product of chance plus time. I.e., that we've simply managed to reproduce conditions and processes which required the direction of an Intelligence.
creationist wackos... always ask how can life be created out of nothing.
Not really. Creationists invented the idea -- creatio ex nihilo, it's called, the belief that God created everything from nothing. It's the evolutionary theories that require prior material to work with.
In any case, scientists have been creating amino acids in laboratory settings for decades. Amino acids are not life; merely a requisit building block for it. Scientists still have not managed to create life in a test tube. When they do, then you can wave it in the creationists' faces.
I'd agree this one would be a close call. In the end, however, I'd probably metamod it as a fair moderation. Why? Because the tone of your message comes across as just a general outburst against the Bush administration, with bare relevance to the topic under discusson.
I agree with your point about tone-setting. However, I also understand the moderator's point; specifically, that, even if your post isn't blatant flamebait, neither on the other hand does it really add anything of positive value to the discussion.
If instead you had included a bit of discussion of the issue first before tossing out your opinion in a bit more diplomatic way, I would almost certainly have swung the other way. Perhaps something like, "By reversing many of the Clinton era regulations [give an example or two here], Bush seems to be furthering a campaign to destroy consumer privacy. Perhaps it's time those of us with privacy concerns sent a message by electing a different president."
I try to give moderators some leeway. This doesn't strike me as the kind of agregious abuse of moderatorship I have to deal with on a daily basis, even if I would not have made the same moderation decision.
Check www.musiccity.com. The symptom you're experiencing is the whole reason this fiasco exists (kazaa blocking them out).
But that's exactly what I just did, half an hour ago -- followed the MusicCity link to the new client, installed it, and got the "too old" message. Are you saying the new client doesn't fix the problem?
I just downloaded, installed and attempted to run the new client, and received the message "Your version of Morpheus is too old to connect to the network. Please download updated [sic] version from www.musiccity.com"
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What makes you assume my secretary is a woman?
BTW, it's "misogyny".
The problem is that most people don't know what a browser is. My secretary sure doesn't. I'm not sure she even knows what the Internet is beyond some vague notions that it's "out there" somewhere, and that she gets to it whenever she double-clicks the shortcuts I set up on her computer.
Trying to convince her to switch browsers would be like trying to convince my wife to use a different brand of antifreeze. Even on the off-chance she knew what it was, there's no chance in hell she'd ever care.
A quick search turns up Office XP prices running in the $NT18,000 - $19,000 range for a new user. With current exchange rates hovering around NT$35 to US$1, that makes Office XP more expensive in Taiwan than MS's own MSRP of US$479. Prices in the PRC are in the same ballpark -- which translates there to roughly two months' laborer's wages. And MS wonders why piracy rates are so high.
Not sure precisely what your professor meant. However, there is quite a large gap between their respective citizenries' conceptions of intellectual property rights and, say, Microsoft's. Basically, the reasoning goes, having shelled out the bucks for the CD, it's mine to do with as I choose: buy once, run everywhere. The whole notion of 'licensing' software just seems to slide right off the public conciousness.
One must also not underestimate the influence of MS pricing policies. When I went hunting for a new PC recently, every package included the full suite of MS software -- always pirated. There wasn't a store to be found that included legitimate software; with razor-thin profit margins, the price gouge would put them out of business. In short, Taiwan cannot afford Microsoft.
Not sure on this. However, as a member of the World Trade Organization, Taiwan is subject to international IP agreements. In addition, Taiwan has been trying to clear itself from the US '301' list -- which carries the threat of trade sanctions -- by cracking down on rampant piracy.
Trust me, there aren't any. Taiwanese, for example, love the idea of cameras monitoring one's every move. For Taiwanese, security trumps privacy any day of the week.
If it's tolerated in America, where privacy is so highly valued, it's tolerated everywhere else, too.
No? Imagine the toaster that can brown your toast to perfection, with no user intervention required. White, whole wheat, rye, thin-sliced, thick-sliced, wheat-thins, leavened or unleavened. The toaster automatically senses what you put in, remembers YOUR idea of perfection (no more arguing with the wife over who left the toaster set to "dark"; it was probably you anyway), and suddenly "burnt to a crisp" becomes something that used to happen to your grandparents.
Now take another step back. Anyone who's ever tried to put together a gourmet meal in his own kitchen can tell you by far the hardest part is the timing -- getting the pheasant under glass, the beef souffle, the Stove Top stuffing -- AND the toast -- all finished at the same time. Now imagine a wired kitchen. Pop the turkey roast in the oven, the frozen veggies in the nuker, the whole wheat in the toaster, and tell your kitchen you want all the accessories to be ready at the same time as the bird. The oven, monitoring the turkey, informs the nuker when there's seven minutes to go so the nuker knows when to start defrosting. At the 45 second mark the toaster kicks in, and 45 seconds later you have a turkey roasted to perfection, veggies steaming hot, and golden brown toast all waiting together. And the whole time you were watching WWF re-runs in the living room. Course, that's not to mention that your oven knows seventy three different ways to roast duck, a hundred and seven ways to bake a cake, and three hundred and twelve ways to broil salmon, all courtesy of your DSL Internet connection. Throw in a two-job, on-the-go family with no time to spend deciphering recipe books, and calling this kind of self-orchestrating, fully-automated kitchen "marketable" would be the understatement of the millenium.
they would suffer from the vcr problem of being too complicated to use/control/program and most people would be stuck with the factory settings that they might not like.
Just the opposite. Imagine a VCR networked with a time server, and that flashing "12:00" goes the way of burned toast (see above). Imagine a VCR that connects to an online database of TV schedules, and you'll never accidentally tape the wrong channel -- or the right channel at the wrong time -- again. Want more? Imagine a VCR that knows you never miss Babylon Five and considerately tapes tonight's episode for you even though you forgot to tell it to do so. Imagine a VCR that automatically adjusts to last minute schedule changes. Imagine a networked VCR that, connecting to an online database, can not only confirm that yes you did see that actress in another movie just last week, but even show you the scene. Imagine stumbling into the middle of an interesting movie on HBO and wishing you'd caught the whole thing. Pas de problem for your VCR -- just tell it to record the next occurance; you don't even need to know when it is. The VCR will inform you when the task is accomplished -- or tell you exactly which local video stores stock it if you just can't wait. Imagine a VCR that monitors your viewing habits so that it can flag upcoming events of potential interest.
Yeah -- I'd buy that VCR.
You're assuming some sort of gigantic centralized government database. But there are other possibilities.
Merchants will tag their inventory to protect themselves from theft, then log the inventory's movement on premises. Once you leave the store with it, your presence is detected by the local street safety patrol's monitors tracking you by your driver's license, until you enter your next destination, say the local pub. Inside the pub, you pay -- cash -- for a quick stimulant, with the cash register reading the embedded chip (which marks the bill as genuine with a unique serial number) and noting (courtesy of a tie-in to the IRS database which tracks all currency movement for tax assessment purpose) that you received that bill as change at the local florist's.
Next stop is a quick drive to your mother's to drop off her Mother's Day flowers, while the local security firm you pay to track the whereabouts of your late-model sportster registers your every turn.
Of course, Ma Bell also monitors your every step via your GPS-enabled cellphone so it can conveniently bombard you with advertising from whatever local business you're happening by at the moment.
I mean, it's sorta fun to think that the government/corporations/whoever really cares about me individually, and is devoting massive amounts of manpower and/or computer resources to tracking my shopping habits, but.. why would they bother?
You get the picture. No, there won't be a single centralized database monitoring every aspect of your life, but rather a myriad of local databases tracking just that portion of your activities in which it has a vested interest. Tying it all together later would require nothing more than a simple court warrant and an Internet connection. Or, I'm sure, private investigators could provide the same service for a fee.
So does Nazi Germany, for that matter, or Iraq. Of course, many if not most of Peck's ten criteria are open for debate, at least in their application. For example, vis a vis the Catholic Church:
1. Idolatry of a single leader - did he have in mind here the Pope or Christ?
2. A revered inner circle - presumably, say, Cardinals, or the Vatican? Or does he mean local parish councils?
3. Secrecy of management - this could apply to any privately-held business - minutes of board meetings aren't released, business practices are locked away as "trade secrets", and any given management decision is not generally made available to the public. By comparison, one might argue the Catholic Church's management procedures and structures are quite open.
4. Financial evasiveness - Every parish I've ever belonged to releases full parish financials at least once a year, fully audited by independent reviewers. No comparison here to, say, the CoS.
5. Dependency - all of us experience a broad range of dependencies in our lives. It's part of our natures. At what point does one cross that invisible line between normal and abnormal dependency? Certainly religious people are dependent on religion for a part of their emotional well-being. How does one decide when that becomes abnormal and unhealthy?
6. Conformity - ANY association to which one belongs exhibits a certain amount of conformity - right down to your bowling league uniforms. Anyone who has ever been a teenager can tell you about pressures to conform. Again, where's the line?
7. Special language - well, ANY religion has its own set of jargon. So does the local chess club. I assume here Peck has in mind special SECRET language which is open only to the initiated?
8. Dogmatic doctrine - EVERY major - and most minor - religion is guilty on this point.
9. Heresy - Heresy is not defined in a vacuum. Does Peck here mean the cult's teachings are heretical? As compared against what? "Established religions"? On that criterion the Catholic Church is by definition not the standard, not the heresy. Or does he mean the cult defines what it heretical? In that case, this is just the flip side of dogmatic doctrine.
10. God in captivity - Does Peck mean by this there is nothing about God that the cult doesn't know, that all that is knowable about God is known by the cult (leaving room for the transcendence of God), or merely that ONLY the cult has reliable knowledge about God? These are widely differing claims. There are some interesting cultic elements that don't seem to make Peck's list, as well. Such as tight control over the members' lives -- from social relationships to the member's information sources, to assignment of spousal relationships, to the controlling of members' finances. A siege mentality -- a small band of believers surrounded by a hostile world -- which leads either to an overly-fanatical emphasis on proselytism, or a withdrawal from the world. A pervasive emphasis on apocalyptic imagery and a belief in the imminent arrival of the "end times". A special gnosis -- or secret knowledge -- available only to the "initiated" (I suspect Peck was trying to get at something like this in points 8 and 10). And so on.
While an point of departure for discussion purposes, Peck's criterion are not the final word on the matter.
You're both wrong. While this is not to say dishonesty doesn't exist at all age levels, as any decent sociologist will tell you youth (particularly in the 15-24 year old age bracket) are more prone to criminal behavior. Crime rates drop off dramatically after that.
cutting down on the amount of money that is handled cuts down on theft
Admittedly, this comes from someone who has never worked in a grocery store, but don't most stores keep a pretty close eye on cash register draw balances? Seems to me it would be much easier to make off with store merchandise than cash out of your drawer. Which, if true, means this won't have a major impact on employee theft.
I was referring specifically to the statement regarding "owning" the software. The EULA specifically, and with great emphasis, states you do NOT own the software -- you LICENSE it -- specifically so that MS retains control over it. As soon as an MS lawyer claps eyes on that all hell's gonna break loose in Redmond. There is no way in hell MS would ever admit you OWN their software. It would be the end of their business model.
The rest of your post I agree with.
One would think so, wouldn't one? But not in a Microsoft world. Microsoft insists on seeing the physical license. No license means non-compliance, time to cough up. What this means is that in the future schools will be forced to stop accepting donations unaccompanied by the proper license. What a shame.
I'm just glad I live in a country beyond the graspings of Microsoft.
Seems unlikely, since every PC the VA bought undoubtedly came preinstalled with a licensed Windows OS, and probably Office as well. Which is more likely: that the VA knowingly mass installed thousands of illegal copies of MS products, or that it misplaced the licenses?
I've no doubt Microsoft is more than capable of nefariousness, but I don't think this site is a case of that. I think this is just incompetence disguised as valid legal mumbo-jumbo. I'm still convinced the statement about owning licensed software would not be there if this site had passed by the eyes of at least one upper-management PHB or legal-type before being put up for public consumption. Microsoft may be malicious, but that just doesn't strike me as an admission Microsoft would make even on its most malevolent day. It pulls the rug out from under their entire business model.
But I'm just one guy, so what do I know? :-)
Someone once said, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." Or if someone didn't say it, he should have.
Please, folks. This is not some nefarious Redmondian plot. It's simply a case of some middle-management MS trog going live with a website without running it by the legal department first. Had the MS legal eagles clapped eyes on this concoction before it debuted, there's no way that statement about "owning" licensed software ever would have seen the light of day.
This is just some Redmond lackey trying to explain the OEM OS license in public-speak and horribly mangling it in the process. This mysterious much-maligned Microsoft minion is not malicious, just misinformed.
Before we all get our undies in a bundle, I suggest everyone calm down, count to ten, wait a couple of days and then check the site again. I all but guarantee it will either be gone, or at least substantially reworded to conform much closer to legal realities.
Because Windows is an adjudicated monopoly. Legally, there is a different set of rules for MS now.
Lest you forget, Apple considered making Netscape the default browser. MS threatened to pull the next version of MacOffice if that happened. Not surprisingly, it didn't happen.
Amiga, BeOS ... Unix, Sega Saturn
Which, all together had a combined marketshare of -- what, 0.5%? Now there's a piece of pie worth chasing.
Linux
Umm, dude. Netscape does make a version for Linux.
It's non-trivial only because MS made it so. And that was one of the points of the trial, that there was no necessity for MS to integrate IE in the manner it did -- mixed haphazardly with all sorts of non-browser functionality such that removal of IE-related DLLs also broke other OS components. MS could just as easily have isolated the browser and HTML-rendering in separate DLLs without adverse effect on the OS; that it chose not to was for monopolistic, not technical, reasons. I hope the courts grant the states' request and order MS to modularize the OS. MS made its bed, maybe the courts will make Gates sleep in it.
There is no technical reason why MS couldn't have designed its OSes with greater modularity -- and in fact for maintenance and upgrade purposes it would have been better had it done so. MS's purpose seems to be to make IE unremovable simply so that it can claim IE is unremovable. If Microsoft can get away with bolting the browser to the OS, then Media Player is next (goodbye RealPlayer; nice knowin' ya Quicktime), followed by text-to-speech renderers (so sorry ViaVoice), online financial transacting functionality (adios, Quicken, hello MS tax), MS-TCP/IP (good riddance, Internet), ad nauseum.
if I was writing a media player application for Windows, I'd expect the Media Player components to be there
But does it have to be Microsoft's DLLs? Modularity, couple with a published API, would assure developers of the presence of standardized multimedia functionality, but would give end-users free choice.
Netscape would, essentially, like to make life difficult for developers by making them develop and test with multiple HTML renderers/browser components
Assuming all renderers complied with an industry standard (say, W3C), what does the developer care whose renderer is being invoked? There is a lot MS could do to play nice with the rest of the industry, unless Redmond is admitting its programmers are incapable of solving whatever technical hurdles might lie in the way of such a goal.
If the 5500 uses the same screen, I don't think I'm interested.
I'm not sure. If science manages to create a very artificial environment within which they're somehow able to coax life into existence then, yes, you might be right. But if if it can be demonstrated that those were precisely the conditions and circumstances that existed on a primordial earth, I'm not sure I agree. In that case, scientists would not be creating artificial conditions, simply carefully reproducing conditions that had already occurred naturally.
In essence, the scientists are then the trancendent entity that created life.
The problem is we needed to use the word "create" with greater precision. "Creation" can be understood in two senses: 1) creatio ex nihilo, or creation by fiat from nothing. And 2) a derivative creation, in which something is created from previously existing materials. Human beings are masters of the latter; only God is capbable of the former.
Assuming humans eventually succeed in producing life by reproducing the conditions under which it (presumably spontaneously) originated doesn't de facto disprove intelligent design. Scientists are not trying to disprove God; they're simply trying to better understand the conditions and processes that led to the emergence of life.
I suspect that once science manages to create life, we'll simply be right back at ground zero in the whole creationist debate. Non-theistic evolutionists will claim they've disproven God. Creationists and theistic evolutionists will continue to argue that reproducing the primordial conditions does not in itself prove that those conditions could have arisen as simply a product of chance plus time. I.e., that we've simply managed to reproduce conditions and processes which required the direction of an Intelligence.
Not really. Creationists invented the idea -- creatio ex nihilo, it's called, the belief that God created everything from nothing. It's the evolutionary theories that require prior material to work with.
In any case, scientists have been creating amino acids in laboratory settings for decades. Amino acids are not life; merely a requisit building block for it. Scientists still have not managed to create life in a test tube. When they do, then you can wave it in the creationists' faces.
I'd agree this one would be a close call. In the end, however, I'd probably metamod it as a fair moderation. Why? Because the tone of your message comes across as just a general outburst against the Bush administration, with bare relevance to the topic under discusson.
I agree with your point about tone-setting. However, I also understand the moderator's point; specifically, that, even if your post isn't blatant flamebait, neither on the other hand does it really add anything of positive value to the discussion.
If instead you had included a bit of discussion of the issue first before tossing out your opinion in a bit more diplomatic way, I would almost certainly have swung the other way. Perhaps something like, "By reversing many of the Clinton era regulations [give an example or two here], Bush seems to be furthering a campaign to destroy consumer privacy. Perhaps it's time those of us with privacy concerns sent a message by electing a different president."
I try to give moderators some leeway. This doesn't strike me as the kind of agregious abuse of moderatorship I have to deal with on a daily basis, even if I would not have made the same moderation decision.
But that's exactly what I just did, half an hour ago -- followed the MusicCity link to the new client, installed it, and got the "too old" message. Are you saying the new client doesn't fix the problem?
WTF? Anyone have this problem?
Thanks for the vote of confidence.