With people's websites all over the Internet in different places, the government couldn't ask "websites" for all the information about you without a lot of work, and they certainly couldn't go to the head of "website" and ask for a copy of their database to analyze at will. Facebook is all on one place, letting them do this easily.
That's fine as a skit, but lousy if it's supposed to be politically relevant satire.
Assange is revealing government secrets that are not exactly private info on corporations, and compared to information about you, it's more like telling people how good the locks on your windows are, where in your house your expensive stereo is located, and when you'll be away so that it's easier to steal.
It's true that some of that information can be useful to good guys (heck, many people voluntarily post on Facebook when they'll be away from home), but the main point of posting it is to cause trouble for you.
If the problem is what happens when the cloud provider dies (as it is here), then the questions are going to involve bankruptcy law, and therefore by definition, government. You can't say to leave the government out of this when the government is the one who decided in the first place that the data can be sold by the cloud provider if they go bankrupt.
Wii had Metroid Prime Trilogy, which amounts to relatively low prices per game, even though they're not sold individually.
Gamecube games not going down in price are an exception to the usual rule anwyay because Gamecube games run on the Wii without any hassle. Whether Wii games are discounted will probably depend on whether the Wii successor is backwards compatible.
The reason it went away the other times is that the studios needed to go through too much effort to make it.and it couldn't make money except for the first couple of movies when everyone went to see it as a novelty.
This is no longer true; modern 3D movies use computers. The technology just wasn't around for the 50's or 80's fads.
So what's going to happen to the online activation?
Long ago when XP came out there was an issue of what happens when XP gets killed and there's no more activation. I believe Microsoft claimed that they were going to release a patch to take away the activation before killing XP, but I don't know if that's even true. And if it's not, people may be in serious trouble when their XP thinks their new harddrive requires phoning home and Microsoft refuses to answer. Forced upgrades for everyone.
The *main* reason isn't the DRM, it's that Blu-ray disks are more expensive, and to an average viewer watching at an average distance, only marginally better in quality even assuming an HDTV.
And this game will happily allow you to play it. You just don't get the extra goodies.
There is no difference between "extra goodies" and "part of the game" except to the marketing department. Any plan to limit part of the game can be easily sold by relabelling the remainder of the game as "the game" and the limited part "extra content". It's just describing it in a more customer-soothing way.
It's like pre-ordering a game. If you pre-order a game, you get extra goodies with them often times.
If you are getting extra goodies with preorders, the company still wants to be able to sell the game to non-preorder customers, so they have an incentive not to relabel too much of the game as "extra goodies". If the company is selling the "extra goodies" all the time, they no longer have this incentive.
That's like saying Nazi Germany had as much right as the US to invade countries during World War II.
Wars aren't James Bond movies. And this applies to cold wars as well (and Iran/US is definitely the Cold War in miniature.) Whether any side has the right to attack the other side depends on why they're fighting in the war in the first place, not on the mere fact that they're doing the same kind of thing as the other side.
It's the same reason as why it's okay for bank guards to shoot bank robbers, but not okay for bank robbers to shoot bank guards. They're both doing the same thing after all--if the same thing is described as "shooting someone to achieve their goal". Iran's government is a murderous group who'd just as soon nuke Israel and kill us for the evuls (or rather, to help unite their people. and perhaps other Muslims too, against a common enemy and build power, but it may as well as be for the evuls). As such they have no right to do anything at all--whether done by the other side or not--any more than the bank robbers have a right to shoot the guards just because the guards have a right to shoot them.
If you read the original article (rather than the headline), it correctly attributes the claim to the United Nations Environment Programme. The reader can decide for themselves whether that counts as endorsement by the UN. Clearly it wasn't decided by the UN in the sense of having a UN resolution on the subject, but it's silly to deny that UN organizations have enough connection to the UN for the things they say to be blamed on the UN.
(And if you like headlines, note that your own link has "50m environmental refugees by end of decade, UN warns" in the headline.)
Even assuming it takes a branding expert to make a really good name, it doesn't take a branding expert merely to throw out a name that obviously sucks a lot more than average. No branding expert is needed to figure out that "Gimp" is going to discourage use of the program, just some common sense.
The name is a prime example of geeks not having social skills. They just don't get how the name hurts adoption of the program, reasoning that since the name has no effect on the program's functionality, no logical person would ever refuse to use it based on the name, and if someone does refuse to use it, it's their fault for being so illogical and there's no reason to cater to them. Guys, there's a reason why McDonalds isn't named "N*gger Burgers".
It can also be thought of as a small example of how free software has a terrible user interface--after all, in a way the name is part of the user interface. And the people who created the user interface think it's really great. Of course, the Gimp has a terrible user interface in a more conventional way too.
I say, if your computer is part of a botnet, you should be fined. It isn't that difficult for your ISP to figure out that 5, 10, or maybe even 50% of your traffic goes to a botnet. (It should have been blatantly obvious to the ISP of the server, not merely detectable!) So, the ISP sends you freindly warning that it appears you have been compromised - and after a week or two, you're STILL actively participating in the botnet.
This fails because it requires that ISPs be competent and don't mess up when a customer has anything slightly unusual (such as a Linux system). It's too easy for an ISP to say "you're compromised" when you're not, with no way to appeal.
Yeah, you have little power to enforce it, which leads to the other problem: you won't stop any real dicks from reading the book--you'll just stop the basically good people who respect you enough that when faced with that license they'll stop reading it rather than cheat.
These are exactly the wrong people to discourage from reading your book.
There's also the "right to be here" clause. Unless it's supposed to mean that people have a right to be on the Earth (in which case it just says "don't be a serial killer"), I can only interpret it as meaning you are disqualified from reading the book if you oppose illegal immigration.
And how exactly are you supposed to put your family first, yet treat everyone equally?
And I can think of plenty of cases where it may be necessary to hurt family members emotionally. Indeed, it could even conflict with other clauses--what if your family is really hurt by your support of gay rights?
The employer analogy is actually pretty good. If someone told me "you can work here as long as you exercise your body, do not hurt your family emotionally, act honorably, and respect the rights of others", I'd consider such an employer to be a meddling busybody who has no business demanding such things from his employees no matter how well meaning he is, and I'd leave as soon as financially possible. If I didn't get fired first because I told my cousin that she was being duped by a multi-level marketing campaign and it hurt her emotionally.
Again: saying "you have a license to use this if you stop whining about your life", what this really means is "if you are sued in court, you may be forced to pay huge amounts of damages if you cannot prove to a judge and jury that you have stopped whining about your life". This is an utterly stupid thing to want decided by a judge and jury, but by putting it in the license, that's exactly what you're saying.
It's also seriously intrusive. Do we really want to have to pass a stream of personality tests in order to use our computers?
Because we all love it when we are prohibited from copying a book because we don't like illegal immigration.
Not to mention that copyright violation is something handled in a court. When you say that I can copy it if I try to be a better person (etc.), what you are really saying is that if I am in a court accused of copyright violation, and I prove to the judge and jury that I have tried to be a better person (etc.) I am free. Can you see why I might not want to have to prove such a thing in a court, under penalty of paying $100000 if the jury thinks I am not a good person? Because that's what you're requiring, whether you're aware of it or not.
There's also the problem that this license only affects people with a conscience. Someone who is really evil is going to copy the book, but someone who is basically good but can't meet your requirement will feel themselves restricted. You are stopping exactly the people you don't want to stop.
I am aware that this is not an open source license anyway, but there's a reason that open source licenses have "no discrimination against fields of endeavor" in them.
Your own links disprove your point. All three of those people came to the US as children and live in the US, and are probably citizens. None of them were H1-Bs or similar, nor were they offshored hires.
You seem to be confused. The outcry against H1-Bs and outsourcing has nothing to do with the anti-immigration movement, which is mostly aimed at illegally immigrating Mexicans. There are specific reasons why H1-Bs and outsourcing are bad for American workers and they don't apply to people who immigrated as children with their family--for instance, you cannot keep their wages low by relying on their inability to change jobs.
If they will not talk to you without a degree, thats not the company you want to work for.
The company you want to work for is one that will enable you to eat and pay the mortgage.
It never ceases to amaze me how often I see the sentiment "well, if the company does that, you wouldn't want to work for them anyway". People generally don't work for companies for fun--they do so because they need a job in order to provide things like food, clothes, shelter, etc.
(And in this case, it could very well just be the HR department that's messed up. It doesn't follow that everyone at the company is incompetent.)
The key phrase there is "some of the". It's easy to come up with a list of prominent foreigners, but nobody is saying that these people don't exist--only that they don't do better than Americans. They could do no better than Americans even if there are enough of them to make a list. In fact, they could do worse on the average than Americans, and there would still be enough smart ones to come up with a list.
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People may not defend Dan Rather much, but if you want a better example, how about Michael Moore? He's certainly still defended.
With people's websites all over the Internet in different places, the government couldn't ask "websites" for all the information about you without a lot of work, and they certainly couldn't go to the head of "website" and ask for a copy of their database to analyze at will. Facebook is all on one place, letting them do this easily.
That's fine as a skit, but lousy if it's supposed to be politically relevant satire.
Assange is revealing government secrets that are not exactly private info on corporations, and compared to information about you, it's more like telling people how good the locks on your windows are, where in your house your expensive stereo is located, and when you'll be away so that it's easier to steal.
It's true that some of that information can be useful to good guys (heck, many people voluntarily post on Facebook when they'll be away from home), but the main point of posting it is to cause trouble for you.
If the problem is what happens when the cloud provider dies (as it is here), then the questions are going to involve bankruptcy law, and therefore by definition, government. You can't say to leave the government out of this when the government is the one who decided in the first place that the data can be sold by the cloud provider if they go bankrupt.
Wii had Metroid Prime Trilogy, which amounts to relatively low prices per game, even though they're not sold individually.
Gamecube games not going down in price are an exception to the usual rule anwyay because Gamecube games run on the Wii without any hassle. Whether Wii games are discounted will probably depend on whether the Wii successor is backwards compatible.
The reason it went away the other times is that the studios needed to go through too much effort to make it.and it couldn't make money except for the first couple of movies when everyone went to see it as a novelty.
This is no longer true; modern 3D movies use computers. The technology just wasn't around for the 50's or 80's fads.
So what's going to happen to the online activation?
Long ago when XP came out there was an issue of what happens when XP gets killed and there's no more activation. I believe Microsoft claimed that they were going to release a patch to take away the activation before killing XP, but I don't know if that's even true. And if it's not, people may be in serious trouble when their XP thinks their new harddrive requires phoning home and Microsoft refuses to answer. Forced upgrades for everyone.
There's an old joke about how to make rabbit stew--the first step is to catch the rabbit.
The first step towards convincing people that the $60 game is worth it is to actually make the $60 game be worth it.
The *main* reason isn't the DRM, it's that Blu-ray disks are more expensive, and to an average viewer watching at an average distance, only marginally better in quality even assuming an HDTV.
There is no difference between "extra goodies" and "part of the game" except to the marketing department. Any plan to limit part of the game can be easily sold by relabelling the remainder of the game as "the game" and the limited part "extra content". It's just describing it in a more customer-soothing way.
If you are getting extra goodies with preorders, the company still wants to be able to sell the game to non-preorder customers, so they have an incentive not to relabel too much of the game as "extra goodies". If the company is selling the "extra goodies" all the time, they no longer have this incentive.
That's like saying Nazi Germany had as much right as the US to invade countries during World War II.
Wars aren't James Bond movies. And this applies to cold wars as well (and Iran/US is definitely the Cold War in miniature.) Whether any side has the right to attack the other side depends on why they're fighting in the war in the first place, not on the mere fact that they're doing the same kind of thing as the other side.
It's the same reason as why it's okay for bank guards to shoot bank robbers, but not okay for bank robbers to shoot bank guards. They're both doing the same thing after all--if the same thing is described as "shooting someone to achieve their goal". Iran's government is a murderous group who'd just as soon nuke Israel and kill us for the evuls (or rather, to help unite their people. and perhaps other Muslims too, against a common enemy and build power, but it may as well as be for the evuls). As such they have no right to do anything at all--whether done by the other side or not--any more than the bank robbers have a right to shoot the guards just because the guards have a right to shoot them.
If you read the original article (rather than the headline), it correctly attributes the claim to the United Nations Environment Programme. The reader can decide for themselves whether that counts as endorsement by the UN. Clearly it wasn't decided by the UN in the sense of having a UN resolution on the subject, but it's silly to deny that UN organizations have enough connection to the UN for the things they say to be blamed on the UN.
(And if you like headlines, note that your own link has "50m environmental refugees by end of decade, UN warns" in the headline.)
Also, if you follow the second of the original articles it turns out that now, "In 2020, the UN has projected that we will have 50 million environmental refugees". (And that one actually says the UN.)
Even assuming it takes a branding expert to make a really good name, it doesn't take a branding expert merely to throw out a name that obviously sucks a lot more than average. No branding expert is needed to figure out that "Gimp" is going to discourage use of the program, just some common sense.
Everyone you know who has started using GIMP is probably a geek, not an upper level person at a company or other place where image matters.
The name is a prime example of geeks not having social skills. They just don't get how the name hurts adoption of the program, reasoning that since the name has no effect on the program's functionality, no logical person would ever refuse to use it based on the name, and if someone does refuse to use it, it's their fault for being so illogical and there's no reason to cater to them. Guys, there's a reason why McDonalds isn't named "N*gger Burgers".
It can also be thought of as a small example of how free software has a terrible user interface--after all, in a way the name is part of the user interface. And the people who created the user interface think it's really great. Of course, the Gimp has a terrible user interface in a more conventional way too.
I say, if your computer is part of a botnet, you should be fined. It isn't that difficult for your ISP to figure out that 5, 10, or maybe even 50% of your traffic goes to a botnet. (It should have been blatantly obvious to the ISP of the server, not merely detectable!) So, the ISP sends you freindly warning that it appears you have been compromised - and after a week or two, you're STILL actively participating in the botnet.
This fails because it requires that ISPs be competent and don't mess up when a customer has anything slightly unusual (such as a Linux system). It's too easy for an ISP to say "you're compromised" when you're not, with no way to appeal.
If you don't try to minimize legal liability, you'll find yourself with more legal liability than you need. And legal liability really hurts.
Yeah, you have little power to enforce it, which leads to the other problem: you won't stop any real dicks from reading the book--you'll just stop the basically good people who respect you enough that when faced with that license they'll stop reading it rather than cheat.
These are exactly the wrong people to discourage from reading your book.
There's also the "right to be here" clause. Unless it's supposed to mean that people have a right to be on the Earth (in which case it just says "don't be a serial killer"), I can only interpret it as meaning you are disqualified from reading the book if you oppose illegal immigration.
And how exactly are you supposed to put your family first, yet treat everyone equally?
And I can think of plenty of cases where it may be necessary to hurt family members emotionally. Indeed, it could even conflict with other clauses--what if your family is really hurt by your support of gay rights?
The employer analogy is actually pretty good. If someone told me "you can work here as long as you exercise your body, do not hurt your family emotionally, act honorably, and respect the rights of others", I'd consider such an employer to be a meddling busybody who has no business demanding such things from his employees no matter how well meaning he is, and I'd leave as soon as financially possible. If I didn't get fired first because I told my cousin that she was being duped by a multi-level marketing campaign and it hurt her emotionally.
Again: saying "you have a license to use this if you stop whining about your life", what this really means is "if you are sued in court, you may be forced to pay huge amounts of damages if you cannot prove to a judge and jury that you have stopped whining about your life". This is an utterly stupid thing to want decided by a judge and jury, but by putting it in the license, that's exactly what you're saying.
It's also seriously intrusive. Do we really want to have to pass a stream of personality tests in order to use our computers?
Because we all love it when we are prohibited from copying a book because we don't like illegal immigration.
Not to mention that copyright violation is something handled in a court. When you say that I can copy it if I try to be a better person (etc.), what you are really saying is that if I am in a court accused of copyright violation, and I prove to the judge and jury that I have tried to be a better person (etc.) I am free. Can you see why I might not want to have to prove such a thing in a court, under penalty of paying $100000 if the jury thinks I am not a good person? Because that's what you're requiring, whether you're aware of it or not.
There's also the problem that this license only affects people with a conscience. Someone who is really evil is going to copy the book, but someone who is basically good but can't meet your requirement will feel themselves restricted. You are stopping exactly the people you don't want to stop.
I am aware that this is not an open source license anyway, but there's a reason that open source licenses have "no discrimination against fields of endeavor" in them.
Your own links disprove your point. All three of those people came to the US as children and live in the US, and are probably citizens. None of them were H1-Bs or similar, nor were they offshored hires.
You seem to be confused. The outcry against H1-Bs and outsourcing has nothing to do with the anti-immigration movement, which is mostly aimed at illegally immigrating Mexicans. There are specific reasons why H1-Bs and outsourcing are bad for American workers and they don't apply to people who immigrated as children with their family--for instance, you cannot keep their wages low by relying on their inability to change jobs.
If they will not talk to you without a degree, thats not the company you want to work for.
The company you want to work for is one that will enable you to eat and pay the mortgage.
It never ceases to amaze me how often I see the sentiment "well, if the company does that, you wouldn't want to work for them anyway". People generally don't work for companies for fun--they do so because they need a job in order to provide things like food, clothes, shelter, etc.
(And in this case, it could very well just be the HR department that's messed up. It doesn't follow that everyone at the company is incompetent.)
The key phrase there is "some of the". It's easy to come up with a list of prominent foreigners, but nobody is saying that these people don't exist--only that they don't do better than Americans. They could do no better than Americans even if there are enough of them to make a list. In fact, they could do worse on the average than Americans, and there would still be enough smart ones to come up with a list.
I wouldn't call a factor of 6, when I was expecting a factor of 8, "a lot less increase than I was expecting"