Invalid agreement, made under duress, similar to the EULA's you have pop up when you install proprietary software. Non binding, in any sane world. Possibly binding in our totally screwed up legal system.
A 20 year prison sentence can be called a remedy........
The "level playing field" concept has me curious. Is that a legal term in Europe? I really don't think it is here.
Let's talk about another famous monopoly. In the '20's Al Capone had a monopoly on alcohol in and around Chicago, I believe. They never could bust the guy for anything important, so they went after him for tax evasion, correct? Now, Al could have paid those taxes. But, the government wanted to remedy a situation that they found intolerable. Al went away for a long, long time.
Do I have that story right? I'm not googling, but that's how I recall the story.
Remedy. Meaning to fix a problem - cure an ailment - kill a disease. Or, in slashdot parlance, level the playing field.
Parent expresses a valid opinion, and never should have been modded down. The mod speaks volumes for corporate fanboism and American ethnocentricity - not to mention the moderator's intelligence.
Your points have been rationally and logically addressed on/. repeatedly.
A: The point of anti-trust sanctions is PUNISHMENT. The point is NOT to "level the playing field". Everyone who thinks that "leveling the playing field" is the goal here, simply does not understand what "monopoly" means.
B: No Linux distro "bundles" a browser, in the same way that MS "bundles" IE. Fire up your favorite installer for any *nix OS. You can choose among all the options, and you can almost always choose to install a "minimal" system. If you happen to get Lynx installed by default on that minimal system, you can uninstall it with apt-get or corresponding package manager. *nix runs just fine WITH NO BROWSER INSTALLED AT ALL!!! No rendering agent, nothing. Strip it down to the kernel, and Linux is happy. As a matter of convenience, IF you CHOOSE to install a GUI with your Linux distro, THEN you have a default selection for a browser. In most cases, you can change that default before install begins, and you can CERTAINLY change that after installation finishes.
In contrast, the only way to remove Trident is to hack the installation media. That, by definition, is monopolistic.
C: MS is capable of building scripts. There is no great technological hurdle preventing a simple script popping up during Windows installation, asking which, if any, browsers you wish to install. The OS can then connect to mozilla.org or whichever site the browser is hosted on, and download, then install the browser of choice. No big deal - MS comes with FTP, just as all other OS's do.
D: No one cares that you consider this a flashback to the '90's. Justice served late is to be preferred to justice never served.
E: No one gives one small rat's ass whether Ballmer commits seppuku, or perjury, or even bestiality. I mean, what are you, a Ballmer fan? Why SHOULD ANYONE care about Ballmer? He's just one more rat trying to justify his existence, IMHO.
F: It is quite disingenous of slashdotters, who are supposedly tach savvy, to object that without IE they can't download a browser. My 16 year old son could do the scripts necessary to download a browser of choice without Trident installed on a Windows machine. His script may not be the best, or the most elegant, but he could and would make it work. Here, on slashdot, I would expect anyone posting to AT LEAST be aware that such a script is possible, without much work.
"And what interest may the police have to keep the laptop for a longer time?"
They haven't finished watching the movies/porn yet? "Awwww, Your Honor, can't we keep this computer for just another week? I forgot how good "Debby does Dallas" was, and with my schedule, I won't be able to watch it til the weekend!"
Portnux speaks true words of wisdom. People need to stop being led around by the nose. Big Company comes out with a new format, and spends millions convincing the non-thinking masses that the format is "better" in some way. Betty Bimbo and Joe Jock decide that they MUST HAVE the newest and bestest, but they aren't smart enough to realize they are being ripped off in the first place.
Only later when they are forced to jump through hoops to use what they have paid for do they even begin to realize that what they USED TO HAVE was just as good, without the headache.
Don't downgrade to Blu-Ray, people. Don't pay the corporation to decide if/when/how you may or may not use the content that you purchased.
I read MSHTML files on Linux using the Gecko engine. There is a package that needs to be installed, so that Gecko can read MSHTML, but it renders just fine. Maybe better than with IE. The other reasons why the core rendering agent is "required" may also be bogus. There ARE alternatives, to almost everything. It isn't required that MS actually "support" those myriad of alternatives, just that they be made available, and that the "default" doesn't preclude those alternatives.
Now I'm curious, lol. I need to test whether Webkit renders those MSHTML, or if I first need to install yet another package.
The enterprise product from Symantec is great, from all accounts. What about their cheap junk? Resource hogging, ineffective crap, designed to make you feel good about giving away your money - and little else.
Install the consumer version of Symantec's internet safety suite, then go looking at bad sites. Then come back and tell us how great Symantec is. I have watched Symantec products self destruct when they come face to face with some of the really bad infections.
Keep in mind that the same is true of most other anti-virus and malware products. I'm not picking on Symantec in particular.
Now, if everyone could afford to set up an enterprise class network, complete with a server to host Symantec's security, then I might agree with you that being anti-Symantec is equivalent to being pro-Virus.
Having a client's best interest at heart is a good thing, so don't get me wrong with the following.
More important that the client's interest, is society's interest. If the issue were ONLY whether Jammie had to pay for some songs, I'd say "Big deal - no story here." If the issue ended with whether it might affect whether I can download music as a result of this case, again, I'd say "Big deal - I can do without."
The REAL issues here, involve a concerted effort by RIAA and it's lookalikes to perform social engineering, on a global scale, with no benefit to society. In effect, the *IAA's want to sit in our living rooms, and watch for every instance of each of us using or enjoying any content to which they can lay any possible claim. And, with every instance, they want to charge us.
Time honored law has been challenged and even overturned in decisions that favor the "rights holders". Those same "rights holders" are spending billions world wide to expand the definitions of those rights, completely redefining what a copyright is.
Imagine a world in which your kindergarden daughter skips a rope in your yard with a half dozen freinds, singing a currently popular song. You check your online banking, to find that you've been charged a dollar or ten dollars for the use of copyrighted material.
Preposterous, you say? Look to the UK, the nation with more surveillance of it's population than any nation on earth. Look at current UK law, which makes it illegal for a mechanic or a restaurant to play a radio which might be heard by it's customers, unless a special fee is paid to the extortionist "rights enforcement" agencies.
The real question here is, what do rights holders hold? Do they hold all of us hostage? Do they own us?
This particular case means little, in and of itself. The important issue, is how the case applies to everyone, throughout the world.
Uhhh, libertarianism is more about responsibility, than about freedom. Not much more, but the stress is there. Unlike American liberals who stress freedom without responsibility.
Somehow, your post makes you sound like a liberal, rather than a libertarian - making you poorly suited to lecture me about libertarian values.
I realize that most people haven't been exposed to the concepts of responsibility, but perhaps you could review the class room scenes in the movie "Starship Trooper". Better yet, re-read the book. You are no one, and nothing, in the eyes of the state, until you first serve the state, and earn your rights.
If you begin to understand that author's viewpoints, and if you carer to look further, maybe you could actually do some light study on libertarian values.
That out of the way - how is it responsible of people to create, to distribute, or to enjoy this crap? The word "nihilism" is used in another post in this thread, and it applies to the whole child rape game idea.
Nihilism and libertarianism have almost nothing in common.
"millions of people play and enjoy grand theft auto, yet our major cities have not broken down into nihilist playgrounds."
They haven't? Perhaps you should visit those cities. Gangs rule the 'hood, old people are robbed so that some dopehead can get a "fix", schoolchildren have pimps for role models, moms and dads wait for welfare checks with which to buy booze, drugs, or whatever.........
Wait - maybe we don't define nihilism in the same way?
I really see nothing funny about the post, or the sentiment. We've been taught that a harsh word directed at a child can damage his self esteem, we've been taught that sexual and racial stereotypes damage children, we've been taught many things about rearing children. These games teach kids, what, exactly? Don't give me some silly bullshit about the games being targeted at adult audiences - anyone who tells me they didn't find Dad's or big brother's stash of porn, booze, tobacco, guns, or drugs before they reached age ten must be TERRIBLY retarded.
So, we have impressionable kids playing games that teach that you MUST rape little girls to succeed.
Fuck. Just fuck. I'm sorry people - I believe in free speech, I believe in libertarian values, but GTA is just about the bottom of the frigging gutter. Anything lower should NOT be sold as "entertainment".
I would MUCH RATHER my kids watched some stud banging a big tittied broad on a twenty x film, than have them learning that rape is acceptable. There have to be some kind of limits on the violence we are willing for our kids to see, hear, and experience, even if it IS just a stupid fucking game.
Of course, there are those who were raised as animals, and are raising their own broods as animals. Maybe this trash is fitting for those people, and their kids.
Correct. The study is obviously flawed, economically speaking. In a real life study done years ago, trains moved freight for about 7 cents per ton/mile, and trucks moved the same freight for about 28 cents per ton/mile. As I recall, that included investment in tractor/locomotive and trailer/railcars, but did NOT include the highway/rail infrastructure.
Obviously, MOST people and corporations moving freight find that rail and truck are both more economical than air - witness the fact that millions of tons of freight roll down the tracks and the highways each and every night, whereas air freight is reserved for small, high priority shipments. (In fact, shipping by truck is often faster than shipping by air, but I won't go into that here)
If we were to build fleets of aircraft like the Hercules to move our groceries around the continent that demanded high quality aviation fuel (JP-5 or whatever it is they use) the cost of ALL fuels would increase because the refineries would simply shift their methods to yield more JP-5 and less diesel fuel and gasoline.
And, in the end, those planes would still be emitting pollutants, probably worse than what we are doing right now. Not to mention, the trucks would still be around to get the groceries from the airport to the market.
Watch the news much? Our local stations hire people to stand in front of the camera based on such criteria as cleavage, white teeth, and affirmative action. They hire so many clowns, that when they put a big black guy in front of the camera, I waited in anticipation to see how his retardation would manifest itself. Imagine my shock when he spoke intelligently, never stumbling over words with more than 5 letters. Smooth as could be. Of course, HE didn't last long either. Seems he got a better job paying three times as much. Nice exposure, huh?
Just boycott the shit. Problem solved. Serious, just don't buy it. I don't. Organize a boycott. Someone with popularity and charisma start a campaign. Start educating the ignorant masses that they are being raped, and that the rape will never end.
Those of you who see what is going on - what are you doing about it? Do you buy STEAM, iTunes, and all the rest of the DRM's crapola out there? If so, YOU ARE the problem. Do you email, write, or phone the companies responsible to bitch and bellyache every time something doesn't work the way you want it to? If not, YOU ARE the problem.
It certainly isn't fair that some of you give your money to the rapists, then come to forums like this to whine about how unfair it is. Don't unload on slashdot, or the myriad of other forums where people vent. Call the bastards who sold you garbage, and bitch. And, stop giving them your money. Why on earth do you give a man money, so that he can sit beside the pool at his mansion with his buddies, dreaming up new ways to rip you off, while the maid fetches another round of drinks?
Boycott all of them. MPAA, RIAA, all of them. Don't buy ANYTHING that has DRM.
Write your congressman, write your senator, write the White House. I have fired off no less than three emails to Obama regarding "digital rights" since he was elected. If 200 million more Americans were to do the same, we would get his attention. Hell, if only 10 million Americans flooded his mail box with concerns over DRM and other infringements on our rights, he would have to take notice.
Start talking and acting to break the monopolies that RIAA and freinds have. Stop bitching. Stop sending them your money.
A: seems obvious NYCL isn't a billionaire, or he probably wouldn't be who he is, and what he is - ie, some backwater guy with an interest in the little guy. Billionaires aren't taught to give a shit for the little guy, or even for "rights" beyond what money can buy.
B: RIAA and associates have taken some pretty decent hits in courts around the world in recent months. They aren't exactly rolling in revenue generated from extorting consumers. In fact, it's probably safe to say that they are spending about ten bucks for every dollar they win. It isn't safe to say the tide has turned against them, yet, but the tide certainly isn't going with them either.
C: If everyone just stopped buying the "product" sold by RIAA's clients, they would dry up and blow away in a matter of months. Same goes for MPAA and all the other extortion rackets that represent copyright holders.
Add in, the voter is ignorant and apathetic. If you were an honest politician, and you realized just HOW stupid the voter is, might you not be tempted? No one is looking, no one cares, and everyone else is doing it anyway.....
Ahem. Yes, I'll have to agree. You're confused. Any tax fund, no matter what purpose it was intended for, is subject to raiding by the politicos. Not very many years ago, Social Security had a nice little surplus. Everyone already knew that SS would be bankrupted when the baby boomers reached retirement age. But, SS was actually showing a surplus, temporarily. Instead of re-investing those few billions, the politicos cast their greedy eyes on all that money, and passed new laws, entirely contrary to pre-existing law, so that they could pilfer that surplus. You can bet both cheeks of your arse that if politicians care that little about voting old people, they don't really give a damn about non-voting young people.
People are suckers, politicians know it, and they pull the heart strings whichever is necessary to rob us.
Besides which - the law sets bad precedent, even if they really DID use the money for children.
I seldom look to see if I have mod points - for this post, I looked. Saving to the cloud is all well and good, for convenience, I guess. But NOTHING beats the combined reliability and security of my own backups. When convenience takes a shit, that old reliable external drive is still sitting in the corner, or in the back seat, or under the airplane seat, whirring away, and waiting to go.
Yeah, I do save some things to Gspace. But I certainly wouldn't save anything like a confidential industrial secret document. Encrypted on my hard drive is the ONLY place to put it!!
As in earlier posts, I get the idea that managers want a certificate stating that at some point in time, all the locks were locked, the windows were closed and latched, and that no one knows of any other means of access. And, I insist that such a certification is meaningless. Such a certification may be impressive to a potential client - IF the client doesn't have a clue.
It doesn't matter whether it's military or not - security is indeed 24/7. For any manager to pretend otherwise is an indication that he may be otherwise incompetent.
The result of certification can be found in the article, of course. Penetration, and loss of valuable data.
I'm sorry, but your post, and the ones like it, are simply apologetic excuses for failure. No one should be in the business of doing a meaningless audit, just to satisfy some ridiculous requirement put in place by a clueless insurance company.
BTW, I happen to be passingly familiar with ISO audits. Again, meaningless bullshit, meant to produce a little piece of paper and a placard whose only purpose is to impress idiots.
That being the case, then the company hiring the auditor has no recourse when the audit proves to have no value whatsoever. And, if this really is the case with the suit being filed, then I certainly hope that they lose their case.
I mean, FFS, I can type out certificates, print them out, and sell them to you. You can wallpaper your office with said certificates, but they won't stop some script kiddie from stealing what he wants, then wiping your drives.
We seem to have a dysfunctional definition of the word "audit". When the IRC audits an individual, or a company, they look at the overall picture of earnings for the year, or for multiple years. The intent is to itemize EVERYTHING, and to ensure that everything is accounted for. The IRS has a functioning definition of the word "audit". There is little chance of hiding or obscuring anything that has happened in the period of time being audited.
A security audit should serve much the same purpose. Whether the auditors look at all records for a month, or a year, they should remain onsite for a period of time, that period being sufficient to truly understand how things are SUPPOSED to work, and how things work in reality.
A working definition of the word "audit" is simply not a momentary snapshot.
Should I be employed to audit your security, I'll NOT show up at your jobsite for a day, then send you some half-assed report, stating that your recorded procedures look good. That is nothing more than rubber stamping what your management has already decided to implement.
"Audits, by their very nature, are point-in-time or snapshot checks."
8 years military service here. Security was 24/7 plus when I was in uniform. There was no "snapshot" of security, because everyone was trained from day one to understand that a moment in time is meaningless.
I have always laughed at the concept of "security" in most of the civilian world. Seldom have I been in any civil institution where real security measures were in place, and enforced - be that physical or electronic. Oh, there ARE places that are secure, but most banks are a sad, sad joke when it comes to security.
Security providers especially should be liable. They have a contract to provide security, they can't come around every few weeks and check on how things are going.
An auditor has less responsibility than a provider, but even so, he should realize that a "snapshot" is only a fleeting moment in time. If he doesn't understand that he needs to spend DAYS on site to understand not only how things are SUPPOSED to work, but how they DO work, then he isn't competent to pass himself off as a security auditor.
To be perfectly honest, it all comes back to the management, though. There are precious few managers who will part with the money necessary to hire competent security, or to enforce strict compliance with real security measures. Again, that is true of physical security, AND electronic security. The day that someone such as a bank manager pulls his head out of his arse, and realizes that security is costly, the day that he PAYS FOR competent security personnel, THEN his bank will become secure.
It's a good thing to begin to hold these auditors and providers accountable. At least 90% of them are lax, and at least 70% of them are incompetent. A little liability will teach them to learn their jobs, then to perform their jobs properly. It will cost, but everyone will benefit, in the end.
Well, everyone will benefit except those who are exploiting the present lack of security.
Mostly, I'm glad that I keep all my bestiality and S&M in the cloud. The snuff films, too. No point in having that stuff on my hard drive, where the cops can find it. It's all filed in my Gmail account, in the folder below my "Homeland Surveillance spy stuff". No one will EVER think of looking online!!
Slashdot Mirror
Alright, but did Newton have any bad characteristics?
Invalid agreement, made under duress, similar to the EULA's you have pop up when you install proprietary software. Non binding, in any sane world. Possibly binding in our totally screwed up legal system.
A 20 year prison sentence can be called a remedy........
The "level playing field" concept has me curious. Is that a legal term in Europe? I really don't think it is here.
Let's talk about another famous monopoly. In the '20's Al Capone had a monopoly on alcohol in and around Chicago, I believe. They never could bust the guy for anything important, so they went after him for tax evasion, correct? Now, Al could have paid those taxes. But, the government wanted to remedy a situation that they found intolerable. Al went away for a long, long time.
Do I have that story right? I'm not googling, but that's how I recall the story.
Remedy. Meaning to fix a problem - cure an ailment - kill a disease. Or, in slashdot parlance, level the playing field.
Parent expresses a valid opinion, and never should have been modded down. The mod speaks volumes for corporate fanboism and American ethnocentricity - not to mention the moderator's intelligence.
Your points have been rationally and logically addressed on /. repeatedly.
A: The point of anti-trust sanctions is PUNISHMENT. The point is NOT to "level the playing field". Everyone who thinks that "leveling the playing field" is the goal here, simply does not understand what "monopoly" means.
B: No Linux distro "bundles" a browser, in the same way that MS "bundles" IE. Fire up your favorite installer for any *nix OS. You can choose among all the options, and you can almost always choose to install a "minimal" system. If you happen to get Lynx installed by default on that minimal system, you can uninstall it with apt-get or corresponding package manager. *nix runs just fine WITH NO BROWSER INSTALLED AT ALL!!! No rendering agent, nothing. Strip it down to the kernel, and Linux is happy. As a matter of convenience, IF you CHOOSE to install a GUI with your Linux distro, THEN you have a default selection for a browser. In most cases, you can change that default before install begins, and you can CERTAINLY change that after installation finishes.
In contrast, the only way to remove Trident is to hack the installation media. That, by definition, is monopolistic.
C: MS is capable of building scripts. There is no great technological hurdle preventing a simple script popping up during Windows installation, asking which, if any, browsers you wish to install. The OS can then connect to mozilla.org or whichever site the browser is hosted on, and download, then install the browser of choice. No big deal - MS comes with FTP, just as all other OS's do.
D: No one cares that you consider this a flashback to the '90's. Justice served late is to be preferred to justice never served.
E: No one gives one small rat's ass whether Ballmer commits seppuku, or perjury, or even bestiality. I mean, what are you, a Ballmer fan? Why SHOULD ANYONE care about Ballmer? He's just one more rat trying to justify his existence, IMHO.
F: It is quite disingenous of slashdotters, who are supposedly tach savvy, to object that without IE they can't download a browser. My 16 year old son could do the scripts necessary to download a browser of choice without Trident installed on a Windows machine. His script may not be the best, or the most elegant, but he could and would make it work. Here, on slashdot, I would expect anyone posting to AT LEAST be aware that such a script is possible, without much work.
"And what interest may the police have to keep the laptop for a longer time?"
They haven't finished watching the movies/porn yet? "Awwww, Your Honor, can't we keep this computer for just another week? I forgot how good "Debby does Dallas" was, and with my schedule, I won't be able to watch it til the weekend!"
Portnux speaks true words of wisdom. People need to stop being led around by the nose. Big Company comes out with a new format, and spends millions convincing the non-thinking masses that the format is "better" in some way. Betty Bimbo and Joe Jock decide that they MUST HAVE the newest and bestest, but they aren't smart enough to realize they are being ripped off in the first place.
Only later when they are forced to jump through hoops to use what they have paid for do they even begin to realize that what they USED TO HAVE was just as good, without the headache.
Don't downgrade to Blu-Ray, people. Don't pay the corporation to decide if/when/how you may or may not use the content that you purchased.
I read MSHTML files on Linux using the Gecko engine. There is a package that needs to be installed, so that Gecko can read MSHTML, but it renders just fine. Maybe better than with IE. The other reasons why the core rendering agent is "required" may also be bogus. There ARE alternatives, to almost everything. It isn't required that MS actually "support" those myriad of alternatives, just that they be made available, and that the "default" doesn't preclude those alternatives.
Now I'm curious, lol. I need to test whether Webkit renders those MSHTML, or if I first need to install yet another package.
The enterprise product from Symantec is great, from all accounts. What about their cheap junk? Resource hogging, ineffective crap, designed to make you feel good about giving away your money - and little else.
Install the consumer version of Symantec's internet safety suite, then go looking at bad sites. Then come back and tell us how great Symantec is. I have watched Symantec products self destruct when they come face to face with some of the really bad infections.
Keep in mind that the same is true of most other anti-virus and malware products. I'm not picking on Symantec in particular.
Now, if everyone could afford to set up an enterprise class network, complete with a server to host Symantec's security, then I might agree with you that being anti-Symantec is equivalent to being pro-Virus.
Having a client's best interest at heart is a good thing, so don't get me wrong with the following.
More important that the client's interest, is society's interest. If the issue were ONLY whether Jammie had to pay for some songs, I'd say "Big deal - no story here." If the issue ended with whether it might affect whether I can download music as a result of this case, again, I'd say "Big deal - I can do without."
The REAL issues here, involve a concerted effort by RIAA and it's lookalikes to perform social engineering, on a global scale, with no benefit to society. In effect, the *IAA's want to sit in our living rooms, and watch for every instance of each of us using or enjoying any content to which they can lay any possible claim. And, with every instance, they want to charge us.
Time honored law has been challenged and even overturned in decisions that favor the "rights holders". Those same "rights holders" are spending billions world wide to expand the definitions of those rights, completely redefining what a copyright is.
Imagine a world in which your kindergarden daughter skips a rope in your yard with a half dozen freinds, singing a currently popular song. You check your online banking, to find that you've been charged a dollar or ten dollars for the use of copyrighted material.
Preposterous, you say? Look to the UK, the nation with more surveillance of it's population than any nation on earth. Look at current UK law, which makes it illegal for a mechanic or a restaurant to play a radio which might be heard by it's customers, unless a special fee is paid to the extortionist "rights enforcement" agencies.
The real question here is, what do rights holders hold? Do they hold all of us hostage? Do they own us?
This particular case means little, in and of itself. The important issue, is how the case applies to everyone, throughout the world.
Uhhh, libertarianism is more about responsibility, than about freedom. Not much more, but the stress is there. Unlike American liberals who stress freedom without responsibility.
Somehow, your post makes you sound like a liberal, rather than a libertarian - making you poorly suited to lecture me about libertarian values.
I realize that most people haven't been exposed to the concepts of responsibility, but perhaps you could review the class room scenes in the movie "Starship Trooper". Better yet, re-read the book. You are no one, and nothing, in the eyes of the state, until you first serve the state, and earn your rights.
If you begin to understand that author's viewpoints, and if you carer to look further, maybe you could actually do some light study on libertarian values.
That out of the way - how is it responsible of people to create, to distribute, or to enjoy this crap? The word "nihilism" is used in another post in this thread, and it applies to the whole child rape game idea.
Nihilism and libertarianism have almost nothing in common.
"millions of people play and enjoy grand theft auto, yet our major cities have not broken down into nihilist playgrounds."
They haven't? Perhaps you should visit those cities. Gangs rule the 'hood, old people are robbed so that some dopehead can get a "fix", schoolchildren have pimps for role models, moms and dads wait for welfare checks with which to buy booze, drugs, or whatever.........
Wait - maybe we don't define nihilism in the same way?
I really see nothing funny about the post, or the sentiment. We've been taught that a harsh word directed at a child can damage his self esteem, we've been taught that sexual and racial stereotypes damage children, we've been taught many things about rearing children. These games teach kids, what, exactly? Don't give me some silly bullshit about the games being targeted at adult audiences - anyone who tells me they didn't find Dad's or big brother's stash of porn, booze, tobacco, guns, or drugs before they reached age ten must be TERRIBLY retarded.
So, we have impressionable kids playing games that teach that you MUST rape little girls to succeed.
Fuck. Just fuck. I'm sorry people - I believe in free speech, I believe in libertarian values, but GTA is just about the bottom of the frigging gutter. Anything lower should NOT be sold as "entertainment".
I would MUCH RATHER my kids watched some stud banging a big tittied broad on a twenty x film, than have them learning that rape is acceptable. There have to be some kind of limits on the violence we are willing for our kids to see, hear, and experience, even if it IS just a stupid fucking game.
Of course, there are those who were raised as animals, and are raising their own broods as animals. Maybe this trash is fitting for those people, and their kids.
Correct. The study is obviously flawed, economically speaking. In a real life study done years ago, trains moved freight for about 7 cents per ton/mile, and trucks moved the same freight for about 28 cents per ton/mile. As I recall, that included investment in tractor/locomotive and trailer/railcars, but did NOT include the highway/rail infrastructure.
Obviously, MOST people and corporations moving freight find that rail and truck are both more economical than air - witness the fact that millions of tons of freight roll down the tracks and the highways each and every night, whereas air freight is reserved for small, high priority shipments. (In fact, shipping by truck is often faster than shipping by air, but I won't go into that here)
If we were to build fleets of aircraft like the Hercules to move our groceries around the continent that demanded high quality aviation fuel (JP-5 or whatever it is they use) the cost of ALL fuels would increase because the refineries would simply shift their methods to yield more JP-5 and less diesel fuel and gasoline.
And, in the end, those planes would still be emitting pollutants, probably worse than what we are doing right now. Not to mention, the trucks would still be around to get the groceries from the airport to the market.
Watch the news much? Our local stations hire people to stand in front of the camera based on such criteria as cleavage, white teeth, and affirmative action. They hire so many clowns, that when they put a big black guy in front of the camera, I waited in anticipation to see how his retardation would manifest itself. Imagine my shock when he spoke intelligently, never stumbling over words with more than 5 letters. Smooth as could be. Of course, HE didn't last long either. Seems he got a better job paying three times as much. Nice exposure, huh?
Just boycott the shit. Problem solved. Serious, just don't buy it. I don't. Organize a boycott. Someone with popularity and charisma start a campaign. Start educating the ignorant masses that they are being raped, and that the rape will never end.
Those of you who see what is going on - what are you doing about it? Do you buy STEAM, iTunes, and all the rest of the DRM's crapola out there? If so, YOU ARE the problem. Do you email, write, or phone the companies responsible to bitch and bellyache every time something doesn't work the way you want it to? If not, YOU ARE the problem.
It certainly isn't fair that some of you give your money to the rapists, then come to forums like this to whine about how unfair it is. Don't unload on slashdot, or the myriad of other forums where people vent. Call the bastards who sold you garbage, and bitch. And, stop giving them your money. Why on earth do you give a man money, so that he can sit beside the pool at his mansion with his buddies, dreaming up new ways to rip you off, while the maid fetches another round of drinks?
Boycott all of them. MPAA, RIAA, all of them. Don't buy ANYTHING that has DRM.
Write your congressman, write your senator, write the White House. I have fired off no less than three emails to Obama regarding "digital rights" since he was elected. If 200 million more Americans were to do the same, we would get his attention. Hell, if only 10 million Americans flooded his mail box with concerns over DRM and other infringements on our rights, he would have to take notice.
Start talking and acting to break the monopolies that RIAA and freinds have. Stop bitching. Stop sending them your money.
First "Whooosh" I've ever posted here.
A: seems obvious NYCL isn't a billionaire, or he probably wouldn't be who he is, and what he is - ie, some backwater guy with an interest in the little guy. Billionaires aren't taught to give a shit for the little guy, or even for "rights" beyond what money can buy.
B: RIAA and associates have taken some pretty decent hits in courts around the world in recent months. They aren't exactly rolling in revenue generated from extorting consumers. In fact, it's probably safe to say that they are spending about ten bucks for every dollar they win. It isn't safe to say the tide has turned against them, yet, but the tide certainly isn't going with them either.
C: If everyone just stopped buying the "product" sold by RIAA's clients, they would dry up and blow away in a matter of months. Same goes for MPAA and all the other extortion rackets that represent copyright holders.
Add in, the voter is ignorant and apathetic. If you were an honest politician, and you realized just HOW stupid the voter is, might you not be tempted? No one is looking, no one cares, and everyone else is doing it anyway.....
Ahem. Yes, I'll have to agree. You're confused. Any tax fund, no matter what purpose it was intended for, is subject to raiding by the politicos. Not very many years ago, Social Security had a nice little surplus. Everyone already knew that SS would be bankrupted when the baby boomers reached retirement age. But, SS was actually showing a surplus, temporarily. Instead of re-investing those few billions, the politicos cast their greedy eyes on all that money, and passed new laws, entirely contrary to pre-existing law, so that they could pilfer that surplus. You can bet both cheeks of your arse that if politicians care that little about voting old people, they don't really give a damn about non-voting young people.
People are suckers, politicians know it, and they pull the heart strings whichever is necessary to rob us.
Besides which - the law sets bad precedent, even if they really DID use the money for children.
I seldom look to see if I have mod points - for this post, I looked. Saving to the cloud is all well and good, for convenience, I guess. But NOTHING beats the combined reliability and security of my own backups. When convenience takes a shit, that old reliable external drive is still sitting in the corner, or in the back seat, or under the airplane seat, whirring away, and waiting to go.
Yeah, I do save some things to Gspace. But I certainly wouldn't save anything like a confidential industrial secret document. Encrypted on my hard drive is the ONLY place to put it!!
As in earlier posts, I get the idea that managers want a certificate stating that at some point in time, all the locks were locked, the windows were closed and latched, and that no one knows of any other means of access. And, I insist that such a certification is meaningless. Such a certification may be impressive to a potential client - IF the client doesn't have a clue.
It doesn't matter whether it's military or not - security is indeed 24/7. For any manager to pretend otherwise is an indication that he may be otherwise incompetent.
The result of certification can be found in the article, of course. Penetration, and loss of valuable data.
I'm sorry, but your post, and the ones like it, are simply apologetic excuses for failure. No one should be in the business of doing a meaningless audit, just to satisfy some ridiculous requirement put in place by a clueless insurance company.
BTW, I happen to be passingly familiar with ISO audits. Again, meaningless bullshit, meant to produce a little piece of paper and a placard whose only purpose is to impress idiots.
That being the case, then the company hiring the auditor has no recourse when the audit proves to have no value whatsoever. And, if this really is the case with the suit being filed, then I certainly hope that they lose their case.
I mean, FFS, I can type out certificates, print them out, and sell them to you. You can wallpaper your office with said certificates, but they won't stop some script kiddie from stealing what he wants, then wiping your drives.
We seem to have a dysfunctional definition of the word "audit". When the IRC audits an individual, or a company, they look at the overall picture of earnings for the year, or for multiple years. The intent is to itemize EVERYTHING, and to ensure that everything is accounted for. The IRS has a functioning definition of the word "audit". There is little chance of hiding or obscuring anything that has happened in the period of time being audited.
A security audit should serve much the same purpose. Whether the auditors look at all records for a month, or a year, they should remain onsite for a period of time, that period being sufficient to truly understand how things are SUPPOSED to work, and how things work in reality.
A working definition of the word "audit" is simply not a momentary snapshot.
Should I be employed to audit your security, I'll NOT show up at your jobsite for a day, then send you some half-assed report, stating that your recorded procedures look good. That is nothing more than rubber stamping what your management has already decided to implement.
"Audits, by their very nature, are point-in-time or snapshot checks."
8 years military service here. Security was 24/7 plus when I was in uniform. There was no "snapshot" of security, because everyone was trained from day one to understand that a moment in time is meaningless.
I have always laughed at the concept of "security" in most of the civilian world. Seldom have I been in any civil institution where real security measures were in place, and enforced - be that physical or electronic. Oh, there ARE places that are secure, but most banks are a sad, sad joke when it comes to security.
Security providers especially should be liable. They have a contract to provide security, they can't come around every few weeks and check on how things are going.
An auditor has less responsibility than a provider, but even so, he should realize that a "snapshot" is only a fleeting moment in time. If he doesn't understand that he needs to spend DAYS on site to understand not only how things are SUPPOSED to work, but how they DO work, then he isn't competent to pass himself off as a security auditor.
To be perfectly honest, it all comes back to the management, though. There are precious few managers who will part with the money necessary to hire competent security, or to enforce strict compliance with real security measures. Again, that is true of physical security, AND electronic security. The day that someone such as a bank manager pulls his head out of his arse, and realizes that security is costly, the day that he PAYS FOR competent security personnel, THEN his bank will become secure.
It's a good thing to begin to hold these auditors and providers accountable. At least 90% of them are lax, and at least 70% of them are incompetent. A little liability will teach them to learn their jobs, then to perform their jobs properly. It will cost, but everyone will benefit, in the end.
Well, everyone will benefit except those who are exploiting the present lack of security.
Mostly, I'm glad that I keep all my bestiality and S&M in the cloud. The snuff films, too. No point in having that stuff on my hard drive, where the cops can find it. It's all filed in my Gmail account, in the folder below my "Homeland Surveillance spy stuff". No one will EVER think of looking online!!