Whilst this observation doesn't entirely relate to your post, I love how so many Open Source advocates are quick to point out Microsoft's early willingness to dismiss and downplay the significance of FOSS, and then they go and do the same thing right back to Microsoft.
You don't tell a company with Microsoft's assets, brand recognition and mindshare to turn out the lights and go home, at least not yet. Companies have reinvented themselves from far worse positions than Microsoft. Hell, when Apple released the iMac in '98 they hadn't been profitable since 1993. Look where they are now. Writing Microsoft out of the game at this point would be a dangerous and shortsighted bet.
Every country in the world that has an aviation or maritime industry still uses knots and feet. Most countries would still have some none-metric units in fairly common use.
He probably is still in favour of shutting down manned space programs, but it's not his call to make. What he's complaining about is that he is expected to keep an American presence aboard the ISS but has not been given the tools necessary to do the job. If it was up to him he'd probably de-orbit the thing, but it's not.
Yeah, those multiple versions of Windows sure do suck. They should use Linux, of which there is only one distribution, and not dozens and dozens to choose from. It's not like anybody's every written a website to watch distributions of Linux and try and keep track of them all. And no Linux distribution would ever have more than one version, none of this "LTS" and "Desktop" stuff.
Sorry, but I think my need to have companies deeply afraid of losing my confidential information outweighs your need to have cheap second hand hardware for hobby purposes. If the morons have to crush entire machines to get it right, go ahead and crush them.
Ah, 82% were satisfied with the economy, which isn't unexpected given the rapid growth of recent years. Only 65% were satisfied that the government was doing a good job "on issues that were of most importance to them".
Re:Every country has a different threshold
on
China Blocks iTunes
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· Score: 1
Uh, maybe because one is imposed by a government, who can enact criminal penalties for attempts to circumvent the block, and the other is imposed by a commercial corporation who you can choose not to do business with? Last time I checked AT&T isn't going to send you to a labour camp if you view alt.*.
And don't even get me started on the whole "child porn vs some song with lyrics you disagree with" argument.
I'd also like to know why anybody still purchases and operates Diebold ATMs. If they can't design a system that can reliably record something as simple as the number of times a particular button was pressed, why should we trust them with the outcome of billions of dollars in financial transactions? If I was in charge of a major bank I'd be throwing their equipment out on the street.
I don't see Apache on Windows competing with Apache on Linux, I see if competing with IIS on Windows. I would have thought that better Apache performance on Windows would assist in moving more users to Open Source platforms. If you were a Windows user, decided to try Apache to see what the fuss was about and it ran like crap, you probably wouldn't be interested in other Open Source offerings. On the other hand, if you had a good experience, you might be more interested in exploring further.
Disclaimer: I do not drive an SUV, I never have, probably never will, and think that many SUV owners don't need an SUV.
That said, where do you get off calling all SUV drivers assholes and sociopaths? Did you ever consider that some people have a legitimate need to drive an SUV? Did you ever stop to consider the consequences of letting the persons tyres down? Maybe that meant they were late to pick up their kids from school, missed a doctors appointment, or perhaps they're a doctor on-call who then couldn't get to the hospital in time to help a patient? Who's the sociopath now? They could have just stuck some stickers on the windows or something but noooooo, it's not a "statement" unless we infringe other people's rights!
As for Apple, I'm fully aware of the FSF and their ideals. I use Linux. But I also use Apple products, because I have every right to decide to spend my money on Apples evil proprietary software if I damn well want. If the FSF wants to make a statement then they can stand outside and hand out some flyers or something. Chances are, if Apple customers are standing behind the FSF at the genius bar, they don't want to know about software freedom, THEY WANT HELP WITH THE APPLE PRODUCT THAT THEY DECIDED TO PURCHASE.
I love Slashdot. One minute everybody is all pro net-neutrality, and insisting that ISPs shouldn't prioritize or monitor customer traffic because it's none of their business what someone does with their connection. Then somebody mentions the word spam, and all of a sudden the attitude turns completely around and ISPs should be held responsible for customers private communications and behaviour on the internet. Kicking people off the net is fine, as long as you're only breaking spam laws. But kicking people off the net for breaking copyright law is bad, how dare those evil corporations!
I'm not necessarily expressing an opinion either way, I just think it's interesting.
Imagine a web site where you can see each artist's past works and new proposals, contribute money, and get recommendations from other fans.
That's definitely an interesting idea, I'll grant you that. I still think you'd have creating anything other than small films via this method, but I would be very interested to see someone try this concept.
But when you say "retain the rights to [this movie]", what that really means is "demand the right to veto everyone else's communications and actions in order to stop them from showing the movie to anyone without my permission".
No argument there.
And that's where I object: what I say to other people over my phone line and internet connection, or burn onto discs and give away, is my business -- not yours. It's awfully presumptuous to think you can just limit my speech for your own benefit, and tell me what I can or can't do with the equipment and media I own, just to make your business run a little smoother. I'm not your employee.
I disagree. I do think the current methods of copyright protection have gone overboard in this regard; I don't see the need to send the black helicopters because someone takes a few minutes of a movie, dubs it to music and whacks it on Youtube. However, I also don't see how someone torrenting a complete copy of a movie over the internet is a freedom of speech issue, any more than someone selling stolen property at a pawn shop qualifies under freedom of expression. With regard to your equipment and media use not being my business, the contents of your truck aren't any of my business, unless you've parked it in my driveway and are loading it up with my property, in which case yes, it is.
"The existing games aren't going to suddenly vanish."
That's not a valid defense. "Well, we won't get any new games, but the old ones that were produced under the old business model will still be on Pirate Bay!".
"Have you really played every good game in existence, read every good novel, watched every good movie, listened to every good album?"
No. But I don't really want to go back and play that installment of Commander Keen that I skipped. I would like to play new titles.
"Also, without copyright, costs to produce games and movies will be dramatically decreased"
Decreased, maybe, but not eliminated. You still haven't answered the question of where the money to pay for even this reduced figure will come from.
Try thinking of examples other than software for a change. Think about a movie. Who exactly is going to come up with the money to contract a film crew, and actors, to make a movie?
I might want to see the movie, but I sure as hell don't want to poney up the million dollars it would require to produce it. I guess I could try finding other people who want to see the movie, and convince them to pay for it, but that brings two problems: - I don't have anywhere near the resources to contact all potential movie fans who might want to contribute. I could probably only contact a hundred people, tops, even using the internet (I'm just a nobody, why should anybody get onboard with my movie?). - What incentive do any of these people have to help pay for this movie, when they all know that if they sit back and let someone else pay for it, they can get it for free? - If I do somehow get thousands of potential donors to pay for my movie, what do I do if they want input into the production process in exchange for their money? How will I reconcile disputes concerning thousands of stakeholders?
Hmm. What I could do is poney up the million dollars for the movie, and then retain the rights to it for myself. Then, I could charge people token amounts to see the movie in theatres, or buy copies on DVD. Perfect! I get my money back, and consumers only have to pay for a tiny fraction of the cost of the movie. Now that I can sell copies of my movie, I can convince others that there is profit in selling copies (they can have a cut of any sales they make), which encourages a distribution network to form and expands my potential audience, making it even easier to pay for my movie. Sound like a familiar system?
FOSS has been a beneficial business model for some types of software, but people really need to stop insisting that it is a "one size fits all" business model replacement for all sectors of the economy. It ain't.
Unless the banker(s) are the sons of senior Communist Party officials, in which case the mistake will be blamed on a subordinate without political connections, who will then be executed instead.
The only reason the politicians have control over economic activity is because the Chinese government owns most of it. Most areas of the Chinese economy are dominated by state-owned firms.
America's empire is not about territorial control. It's a cultural and economic empire. When the world's key energy reserves are all traded in your nations currency, when bright minds from the developing mind seek to emigrate to your country above all others to find new opportunities, when the most recognised brands in any country on earth where founded in your nation, when the financial markets of your nation are THE most important in the world, when your nation is a powerhouse of technological and scientific development, and when American ideals and values are exported globally in the form of television and movies, you have an empire. It's an empire of hearts and minds, but it's still a form of control, indirect as it may be.
The fall of the American empire means that the above are no longer the case, and I think it can be argued that that is occurring. American culture is no longer as widely desired and emulated as it was, the world is seeking alternatives to the petrodollar, intelligent immigrants are actively moving back to their native lands and are not being replaced at the same rate, and it's only a matter of time before either China or the EU surpass America in terms of economic importance. American technologic and scientific progress are actively hindered by a broken intellectual property system, declining public education and in some cases, religious dogma. Other nations are rapidly closing the gap.
America doesn't have to become a dictatorship to lose it's empire, in the same way the British lost theirs. It is inevitable, however.
Oh, and American military presence is a hell of a lot more widespread than the Middle East, Japan and Hawaii:
Deployments of the US Military
You can already run as a non-admin user on XP. Google the "Run As" command. Right click on the program you want to run (sometimes you have to hold shift), select Run As, choose the Administrator user, enter your password and away you go.
There's also a command line version, "runas". Works just like sudo, I've been doing it for years.
Slashdot Mirror
Whilst this observation doesn't entirely relate to your post, I love how so many Open Source advocates are quick to point out Microsoft's early willingness to dismiss and downplay the significance of FOSS, and then they go and do the same thing right back to Microsoft.
You don't tell a company with Microsoft's assets, brand recognition and mindshare to turn out the lights and go home, at least not yet. Companies have reinvented themselves from far worse positions than Microsoft. Hell, when Apple released the iMac in '98 they hadn't been profitable since 1993. Look where they are now. Writing Microsoft out of the game at this point would be a dangerous and shortsighted bet.
Every country in the world that has an aviation or maritime industry still uses knots and feet. Most countries would still have some none-metric units in fairly common use.
You answered your own question:
Would this be hit under the DMCA for circumventing a copy protection mechanism?
since they will be blocking the downloading of illegal material
The filter does not prevent copying, it prevents downloading. So it is not a copy protection mechanism.
Out of curiosity, where'd you emigrate to?
I assume you're referring to the pic of the shot-up starship. Couldn't the fires be feeding on oxygen escaping from hull breaches?
I'm writing my friend a message
In plaintext for you to see
His name it is Osama
And his last name starts with B
My friend he makes explosives
And possibly anthrax
He sends it via envelope
And tiny little sacks
He doesn't like some people
He calls them infidels
He mentioned he was going
To send them all to hell
This message is sarcastic
I know no terrorists
But it's got a lot of keywords
That are on your danger lists
Your policemen may not like it
But to them I will scoff
I don't like in England
So you can just f*** off.
Math issues aside, what are you planning to do about the other 6 billion people on the planet who might want to access Google?
I'll put money on the BSA, all the way. The military may have nukes, but I hear cockroaches can survive a nuclear exchange.
He probably is still in favour of shutting down manned space programs, but it's not his call to make. What he's complaining about is that he is expected to keep an American presence aboard the ISS but has not been given the tools necessary to do the job. If it was up to him he'd probably de-orbit the thing, but it's not.
Yeah, those multiple versions of Windows sure do suck. They should use Linux, of which there is only one distribution, and not dozens and dozens to choose from. It's not like anybody's every written a website to watch distributions of Linux and try and keep track of them all. And no Linux distribution would ever have more than one version, none of this "LTS" and "Desktop" stuff.
Here's some reading material that might help explain why Microsoft offers the versions it does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
Sorry, but I think my need to have companies deeply afraid of losing my confidential information outweighs your need to have cheap second hand hardware for hobby purposes. If the morons have to crush entire machines to get it right, go ahead and crush them.
Ah, 82% were satisfied with the economy, which isn't unexpected given the rapid growth of recent years. Only 65% were satisfied that the government was doing a good job "on issues that were of most importance to them".
Source.
Uh, maybe because one is imposed by a government, who can enact criminal penalties for attempts to circumvent the block, and the other is imposed by a commercial corporation who you can choose not to do business with? Last time I checked AT&T isn't going to send you to a labour camp if you view alt.*.
And don't even get me started on the whole "child porn vs some song with lyrics you disagree with" argument.
I'd also like to know why anybody still purchases and operates Diebold ATMs. If they can't design a system that can reliably record something as simple as the number of times a particular button was pressed, why should we trust them with the outcome of billions of dollars in financial transactions? If I was in charge of a major bank I'd be throwing their equipment out on the street.
I don't see Apache on Windows competing with Apache on Linux, I see if competing with IIS on Windows. I would have thought that better Apache performance on Windows would assist in moving more users to Open Source platforms. If you were a Windows user, decided to try Apache to see what the fuss was about and it ran like crap, you probably wouldn't be interested in other Open Source offerings. On the other hand, if you had a good experience, you might be more interested in exploring further.
Disclaimer: I do not drive an SUV, I never have, probably never will, and think that many SUV owners don't need an SUV.
That said, where do you get off calling all SUV drivers assholes and sociopaths? Did you ever consider that some people have a legitimate need to drive an SUV? Did you ever stop to consider the consequences of letting the persons tyres down? Maybe that meant they were late to pick up their kids from school, missed a doctors appointment, or perhaps they're a doctor on-call who then couldn't get to the hospital in time to help a patient? Who's the sociopath now? They could have just stuck some stickers on the windows or something but noooooo, it's not a "statement" unless we infringe other people's rights!
As for Apple, I'm fully aware of the FSF and their ideals. I use Linux. But I also use Apple products, because I have every right to decide to spend my money on Apples evil proprietary software if I damn well want. If the FSF wants to make a statement then they can stand outside and hand out some flyers or something. Chances are, if Apple customers are standing behind the FSF at the genius bar, they don't want to know about software freedom, THEY WANT HELP WITH THE APPLE PRODUCT THAT THEY DECIDED TO PURCHASE.
I love Slashdot. One minute everybody is all pro net-neutrality, and insisting that ISPs shouldn't prioritize or monitor customer traffic because it's none of their business what someone does with their connection. Then somebody mentions the word spam, and all of a sudden the attitude turns completely around and ISPs should be held responsible for customers private communications and behaviour on the internet. Kicking people off the net is fine, as long as you're only breaking spam laws. But kicking people off the net for breaking copyright law is bad, how dare those evil corporations!
I'm not necessarily expressing an opinion either way, I just think it's interesting.
That's definitely an interesting idea, I'll grant you that. I still think you'd have creating anything other than small films via this method, but I would be very interested to see someone try this concept.
No argument there.
I disagree. I do think the current methods of copyright protection have gone overboard in this regard; I don't see the need to send the black helicopters because someone takes a few minutes of a movie, dubs it to music and whacks it on Youtube. However, I also don't see how someone torrenting a complete copy of a movie over the internet is a freedom of speech issue, any more than someone selling stolen property at a pawn shop qualifies under freedom of expression. With regard to your equipment and media use not being my business, the contents of your truck aren't any of my business, unless you've parked it in my driveway and are loading it up with my property, in which case yes, it is.
"The existing games aren't going to suddenly vanish."
That's not a valid defense. "Well, we won't get any new games, but the old ones that were produced under the old business model will still be on Pirate Bay!".
"Have you really played every good game in existence, read every good novel, watched every good movie, listened to every good album?"
No. But I don't really want to go back and play that installment of Commander Keen that I skipped. I would like to play new titles.
"Also, without copyright, costs to produce games and movies will be dramatically decreased"
Decreased, maybe, but not eliminated. You still haven't answered the question of where the money to pay for even this reduced figure will come from.
Try thinking of examples other than software for a change. Think about a movie. Who exactly is going to come up with the money to contract a film crew, and actors, to make a movie?
I might want to see the movie, but I sure as hell don't want to poney up the million dollars it would require to produce it. I guess I could try finding other people who want to see the movie, and convince them to pay for it, but that brings two problems:
- I don't have anywhere near the resources to contact all potential movie fans who might want to contribute. I could probably only contact a hundred people, tops, even using the internet (I'm just a nobody, why should anybody get onboard with my movie?).
- What incentive do any of these people have to help pay for this movie, when they all know that if they sit back and let someone else pay for it, they can get it for free?
- If I do somehow get thousands of potential donors to pay for my movie, what do I do if they want input into the production process in exchange for their money? How will I reconcile disputes concerning thousands of stakeholders?
Hmm. What I could do is poney up the million dollars for the movie, and then retain the rights to it for myself. Then, I could charge people token amounts to see the movie in theatres, or buy copies on DVD. Perfect! I get my money back, and consumers only have to pay for a tiny fraction of the cost of the movie. Now that I can sell copies of my movie, I can convince others that there is profit in selling copies (they can have a cut of any sales they make), which encourages a distribution network to form and expands my potential audience, making it even easier to pay for my movie. Sound like a familiar system?
FOSS has been a beneficial business model for some types of software, but people really need to stop insisting that it is a "one size fits all" business model replacement for all sectors of the economy. It ain't.
Unless the banker(s) are the sons of senior Communist Party officials, in which case the mistake will be blamed on a subordinate without political connections, who will then be executed instead. The only reason the politicians have control over economic activity is because the Chinese government owns most of it. Most areas of the Chinese economy are dominated by state-owned firms.
America's empire is not about territorial control. It's a cultural and economic empire. When the world's key energy reserves are all traded in your nations currency, when bright minds from the developing mind seek to emigrate to your country above all others to find new opportunities, when the most recognised brands in any country on earth where founded in your nation, when the financial markets of your nation are THE most important in the world, when your nation is a powerhouse of technological and scientific development, and when American ideals and values are exported globally in the form of television and movies, you have an empire. It's an empire of hearts and minds, but it's still a form of control, indirect as it may be.
The fall of the American empire means that the above are no longer the case, and I think it can be argued that that is occurring. American culture is no longer as widely desired and emulated as it was, the world is seeking alternatives to the petrodollar, intelligent immigrants are actively moving back to their native lands and are not being replaced at the same rate, and it's only a matter of time before either China or the EU surpass America in terms of economic importance. American technologic and scientific progress are actively hindered by a broken intellectual property system, declining public education and in some cases, religious dogma. Other nations are rapidly closing the gap.
America doesn't have to become a dictatorship to lose it's empire, in the same way the British lost theirs. It is inevitable, however.
Oh, and American military presence is a hell of a lot more widespread than the Middle East, Japan and Hawaii: Deployments of the US Military
I didn't think Newegg shipped outside the US? Are you using another vendor, or do you have friends/family to ship it to you? Just curious is all :) .
You can already run as a non-admin user on XP. Google the "Run As" command. Right click on the program you want to run (sometimes you have to hold shift), select Run As, choose the Administrator user, enter your password and away you go.
There's also a command line version, "runas". Works just like sudo, I've been doing it for years.
HTH.