most people don't want to download and install Sun's JRE.
Hmmm...people won't want to download Java. Yet people download "toys" like RealPlayer, Shockwave, etc. all the time for entertainment value. The only people who don't want to download it are recreational surfers who don't like to download plugins in general. People who want to use Java will download it, pure and simple. That's not a strong argument for C#.
As the number of email addresses grow, so does the spammer's lists. Also, it doesn't take any more effort for them to click and send 4 million spams as it does for them to send 40 million. It's still just one click to a harvested list, and they never have to see or pay for the damage and headaches they cause.
The problem is no one in power wants to admit that spam is getting to critical mass. Right now we're in an arms race as better blocking methods come up and better ways to run around those blocks are formed. The only sure way not to get spammed right now is to try to keep your email address private, but even that's failing as spambots get smarter about guessing valid addresses and databases of valid addresses get built. I even get spammed occassionally at work, and I've NEVER released that address to anyone.
Until someone (read major corporation) comes up and says "Hey, this is a problem that's costing us money" the situation is just going to get worse. The spamming situation is reaching a point where it cannot be controlled without intervention via legislation. I'm not a big fan of governement control, but this is the sort of thing that should be looked at heavily...not whether Billy downloaded a copy of Britney Spear's latest single.
It's obvious that Mundie sees the world through Windows-colored glasses. Software must be sold to get the money to make more software. How else could a software company work? If you can't license it, you can't gouge^H^H^H^H^Hcollect your due earnings. Oh, and the whole thing about people not working with Microsoft...if that's not a monopolist talking I don't know what is.
Anyway, rant off now. It's good to see someone who can rationally tear down his arguement, and it's even better to see it on a fairly commonplace site like CNet. I think more and more people are realizing the snowjob Microsoft keeps trying to pull, and in the end that will be the thing that ends the monopoly.
Most systems ship with a CD-R now (and if you don't get one, that's just silliness anymore), so why not just burn the recovery partition to CDs?Voila, instant recovery disks.
Me personally, all I want is the OS and any hardware-specific software on CD. Screw the rest of it...it's mostly marketing crap anyway that just cruds up the drive. I hate these companies that want to tell me I need all their "go to this site, they paid us" links and software. Sell me a computer with an OS, and that's it. Can't do that, then you don't get my money.
LOL...been there, did that, got a few t-shirts to show for it. My wife still works with it on a daily basis. I know EXACTLY how "dumb" that emulator actually is. Yeah, it's got a few nice perks, but for the most part it's still the same thing as it always was. Now it just comes with pretty colors.
Point was that the hardwired dumb terminals themselves went the way of the dodo about 8 years ago. There are still a few locations with them, but it's mostly a PC world now. They just came up with a nifty bit of programming to make the PC act and talk like one of those terminals within the confines of the program. Amazingly enough, it still gets the same 4 second request to response time anywhere on the network in normal conditions. Considering how many requests go over that system in an hourly basis, that's pretty darn impressive.
It used to. I still remember the old nasty green screen dumb terminals that every airport and agency had. Nowadays, they use an emulator on a PC to get the same functionality.
Hate replying to myself, but clarification here after a second read. This part does bother me (in relation to the "Thomson Multimedia's proposed SmartRight copy protection"):
Content owners, for example, can start charging consumers every time their digital content is re-distributed within the home, or viewed several times during a certain number of days specified by them.
Um, can we say DivX? That scheme will surely fail just like DivX did (and the way the "official" digital music sites are). People don't like to pay for what they feel they already have.
Better idea...have us pay for the equipment and then let it be done. Charging for retransmission means your equipment won't be bought, and no money. Even the marketdroids should understand that concept.
I don't give SmartRight two years lifespan on the market, if it even makes it to market.
Ok, I'm all for fair use rights (if you couldn't tell by the sig and the link), but I'm looking at this in a different light. I don't see this as squashing fair use. Encrypting means the PPV that I paid for and I'm broadcasting within my house can't be swiped by the dude next door who sets a receiver close enough to his outside wall. My set of devices are all keyed to a certain encryption, so I can watch what I want anywhere I want in the house, but nobody can intercept it. That actually protects my rights, most specifically privacy.
This also keeps people from setting up "pirate" TV stations and such to broadcast the latest boxing match (*cough*fixed*cough*) to everyone on the block. I admit that might be a flawed reason because of FCC and whatnot, but I'm trying to demonstrate the logic here. This doesn't seem so much like a "copy-protect" as a "transmission-protect" method.
I couldn't find a single ad amongst the links. I did get an X10 pop-under, but all the news links were completely legitimate. I'm betting on a script error that threw the ad to the main window instead of a popunder, but that's not my point.
If you can't replicate a situation, it cannot be taken as fact. Since the link in question wasn't included, it's impossible to say what really happened. However, (prefaced with IANAL) this kind of "news" reporting treads dangerous ground, as you're saying something that's potentially defaming a corporation and there's no viable proof. Editors, be more careful next time. I don't want to see this site die in a cyberspace libel suit (or something similar).
"Hey you, come over here. I've been watching your for 2 hours, and I'm not sure if picking your nose is illegal, but let's see if the courts think that is obscene" (yeah, bad analogy)
I don't think that's a bad analogy. That's just about what's happening with the copyright vs. fair use issues in America and apparently the world. The real problem is that too many times the person under indictment doesn't have the same financial (and thus legal) power to prove the law is flawed as say a mega corporation who has near endless resources to "prove" the law is correct.
To extend your analogy, you've been arrested because nose-picking is obscene, but AOL-Time Warner helped put that law into place and they can spend $15 million on lawyers and lobbying to make sure the law is proved right. You can't afford that much, so you're already fighting on a non-level field. Most likely, you'll settle for a small fine or sentence, and now the law has been "proven" to work...even though no good argument against it has been presented in court.
Nice to see there's a business case out there now against profiling Internet users for ads. Too bad it will most likely be looked at as a fluke failure ("oh they charged too much, we'll charge less") that won't stop the practice. Doubleclick ultimately failed in this venture because they found themselves in a PR fiasco. They gave people a way to opt out, and a lot of people did it. If I was buying advertising, I wouldn't pay the extra for a service that was slammed in the news and that people could choose not to use. Doesn't mean some marketroid out there won't still think it's a great idea.
We haven't heard the last of the advertising profiles. There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, though. The decision will ultimately be decided by the Net surfers who choose to avoid intrusive advertising.
(The parent was moderated down as flamebait, and rightfully so)
Wait 'til you find out that you'll need to know REAL SUBJECTS like MATH and PHYSICS to get a degree.
Figured it out already. Also have figured out how much of that I use in real life. Nada. I sometimes use the tech writing part, but that's about it. Calculus? Useless to me. Thermodynamics? Pointless. If it wasn't for the valuable life lessons I learned in college (like don't mix beer and liquor), I can pretty much count it a waste.
Don't get me wrong, I wish you the best, but I like how the world cycles around and Degrees are important once again.
Are they now? Funny that no one in my particular programming shop has one (well, maybe one person), and we're all doing quite well. That's due to the fact we do our jobs with a high level of quality, not because we have some piece of paper on our walls.
I spent 6 years in college, and they were well spent. I survived the dot-com boom unscathed, never been unemployed one day in my life, and I get to do cool stuff.
Just by the mere fact you used "cool stuff" in a sentence indicates you're a young pup. I've never been unemployed a day in my working life that wasn't by choice, and actually even those days were paid for by vacation. No degree, just lots of experience.
Some day you're going to come to the same realization that a lot of people have, and that's that your little piece of paper has very little to do with your career. It's the experience you gain and the choices you make. Sure, that paper may get you in a few places more than without it. However, if you don't have the savvy, the work ethic, or the experience to handle the job, that piece of paper will be following you right out the door.
Hey it's Slashdot, since when did we get graded on spelling?:)
Anyway, that should be "uninformed". No offense was meant to any of our fine armed forces, although I'm sure they have a different meaning to the acronym MUD. Goodness knows they have acronyms for everything else (brother was USAF, so I know).
When I was in college, I "lost" several of my friends for a few weeks because they discovered a MUD (Multi User Dungeon for the uniformed). They spent every waking hour down in the computer labs, only coming up for food when the delivery boy came. They neglected class, sleep, and basic hygeine, all so they could power up these non-existant characters which they would eventually no longer use years down the road. It was a pretty pathetic scene, and a couple of them actually dropped out of school because of it.
There's a difference between playing a game all night once in a while and completely cutting off friends and family. In terms of mental disorders, it becomes a problem when you cause distress to yourself and those around you. I learned early on to walk away from the computer once in a while, and I completely avoid MUDs and MMORPGs because of their potential to addict. It's fun to escape once in a while, but when the escape becomes your life you need help.
Fair use is dependant upon owning the physical medium...The way things are going currently, you are never going to own a purely digital work
That's the way the record companies would like to see things go. They would eliminate CDs altogether and have the media under their control completely. They WILL turn the music industry into their form of Divx (not the good format, but the bad business model). They'll make you pay for every listen, and if your player gets wiped, tough you'll pay for it again.
It's all about the control, pure and simple. What the record industry hasn't figured out yet is this is a battle they've lost. Tech companies support MP3 and copying files to disc or memory sticks. Customers expect the ability to make compilation disks and send their music to an iPod. Take that away, and the customers will simply find another way to do it. The RIAA is going to find, very quickly, that no one wants to play their reindeer games anymore.
If I remember correctly, the analogy is similar to comparing a phone company and a dialup ISP. The cable companies are like the phone companies, they provide the wiring, the hardware, and the ability to connect. @Home is the ISP, providing the IPs and servers and connection to the Internet as a whole. The cable companies signed on with @Home, and once @Home is gone the hardware's still there but there's no server to go to. It's a modem without an ISP, simple as that.
I do feel bad because I have a lot of friends who don't have land-based phone lines anymore. They switched to cable for the computer and cell phones for phone use. If their service lapses, they're going to be SOL.
I don't see any reason why Excite won't kill the service tonight. They've got nothing to lose, since they're already bankrupt. Shutting off service just stems the bleeding. The other companies are going to get hurt by this, and it's going to put high-speed internet access in a bad light.
But, I guess this is what happens when one company controls the lion's share of internet access. Back in the day of local ISP's, one of them going under wasn't the end of the world. Can you imagine what would happen if AOL or MSN turned off their service? (and yes, I'm bloody well expecting a smartaleck response there).
I'm just glad I never got rid of my dial up access. I have the feeling my friends are going to be coming over to get their net fix during the outage.
I only wish that companies like Handspring would consider the impact of their actions before unleashing something like this on innocent commuters.
I do agree that driving while distracted is a bad thing. I curse at more cellphone yakking drivers a day than anything else. But to say that the manufacturers of the device are to blame? I can't abide by that logic. The devices aren't to blame, it's the stupidity of the user. I tried talking on a cell phone and driving ONCE...and I realized how my driving suffered, so I never did it again. It seems some people are unable to make that logical jump, or they're unwilling to sacrifice that "convenience" to possibly save their life or someone else's.
Aside from that part of the argument, I don't see how a Treo makes the situation worse. Cell phones already exist, as do PDAs. Any of the above behavior is already out there, and I don't think the Treo's audience is Joe Blow. Most average folk won't pony up $400 for a phone when (insert phone company name here) is giving them away with service. Two handed dialing? Maybe that'll make em realize how stupid phone use and driving put together are when they can't dial without releasing the wheel.
They should have complained under DMCA or Copyright, but using a trademark law? Puhleeze.
Of course, anyone with half a brain cell still active should realize that the DMCA is custom built for this kind of complaint. Of course, the DMCA is a law built to protect companies from their own stupidity, pure and simple. "Hey look, it's illegal for you to crack our simple encryption, so we don't have to make it decent. Yeah, a five year old with an abacus could decrypt it, but we've made the abacus illegal because it's a decryption tool."
Between this and our speech/privacy rights being blatantly ignored, I think this country's headed for a real quick meltdown. It's painfully obvious the people making and enforcing laws don't have a clue as to how the Digital Age works, so they fear what they don't understand. That fear is being used to push laws that defy everything this country used to stand for. It's truly pathetic.
I just don't understand the appeal of these dinguses
The appeal is simple. It's a dedicated box that you don't have to worry about drivers or hardware conflicts with. True Plug and Play, just set it up and go. Load times are usually much less, and errors are not tolerated. So, when you get a console game, you expect it to work right the first time, no tweaks needed. Great for the non-technically inclined who doesn't understand how all the components in a computer work. Plus, if you have a PC already, you don't have to worry about a gamer monopolizing the computer when you have work to do.
Heh...that should be "flagrantly", huh?:) That's what happens when my coworker (female) breaks out that powerful Bath and Body lotion. Kills the brain cells faster than alcohol.:)
So many holes in this rant, which ones to choose? Let's go with this one.
I can sell my Copy of XP if i wish, if i sell my NFL tickets it can be scalping.. Microsoft doesn't price point XP, they give it a value. I can buy XP and sell it for 30 bucks or 300 bucks, whatever the consumer is willing to pay. I can't do that with Baseball tickets, nfl tickets ore phone service.
Try selling your copy of XP online, and watch how fast MS stops you because of licensing issues. If you actually sell it on the street, they could still nail you if they find out. You can resell your sports tickets at face price without violating scalping laws. Phone service is a service, not a product, and thus is non-transferable.
Or how about this one?
So why all the resistance on microsoft? Why not make it a perfect world and attack the NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA and your local telco megopoly who restrict your choices and charge you exhuberant prices and rip off the consumer.
Because there are other sports and other phone options, and for the most part those don't do such blatant anti-competitive practices. You don't see the NFL trying to create a baseball team. M$ wants to control the entire computing experience and then some...and they make no bones about it. And of course, the biggest point is that MS has been found to be in violation of law for their monopolistic practices, and yet they still fragrantly defy the law. That makes them a viable target for criticism, pure and simple.
Gates said: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines"
No, the reason you see open source is because people want the ability to customize code to their own personal needs without having to license said code from a monolithic company known for overcharging. Mr. Gates needs get rid of the god complex. Open source has nothing to do with identical desktops and everything to do with control of the code. This statement is just more overgrandizing and makes him look even more out of touch with the industry than he already is.
The RIAA doesn't realize that every time they go after someone, it just increases the visibility of file sharing and gets more people involved. Napster climbed in popularity after people found out they were being sued (thanks to American media). Now it's happening again.
As has been said before, the RIAA is going to have to realize that what they're doing is simply feeding the very beast they're trying to defeat. They must adapt or be tossed aside as obsolete. So far, the RIAA has shown no desire to adapt and as such are being boycotted and otherwise damaged by the very customers who fund their legal pursuits.
Slashdot Mirror
most people don't want to download and install Sun's JRE.
Hmmm...people won't want to download Java. Yet people download "toys" like RealPlayer, Shockwave, etc. all the time for entertainment value. The only people who don't want to download it are recreational surfers who don't like to download plugins in general. People who want to use Java will download it, pure and simple. That's not a strong argument for C#.
As the number of email addresses grow, so does the spammer's lists. Also, it doesn't take any more effort for them to click and send 4 million spams as it does for them to send 40 million. It's still just one click to a harvested list, and they never have to see or pay for the damage and headaches they cause.
The problem is no one in power wants to admit that spam is getting to critical mass. Right now we're in an arms race as better blocking methods come up and better ways to run around those blocks are formed. The only sure way not to get spammed right now is to try to keep your email address private, but even that's failing as spambots get smarter about guessing valid addresses and databases of valid addresses get built. I even get spammed occassionally at work, and I've NEVER released that address to anyone.
Until someone (read major corporation) comes up and says "Hey, this is a problem that's costing us money" the situation is just going to get worse. The spamming situation is reaching a point where it cannot be controlled without intervention via legislation. I'm not a big fan of governement control, but this is the sort of thing that should be looked at heavily...not whether Billy downloaded a copy of Britney Spear's latest single.
It's obvious that Mundie sees the world through Windows-colored glasses. Software must be sold to get the money to make more software. How else could a software company work? If you can't license it, you can't gouge^H^H^H^H^Hcollect your due earnings. Oh, and the whole thing about people not working with Microsoft...if that's not a monopolist talking I don't know what is.
Anyway, rant off now. It's good to see someone who can rationally tear down his arguement, and it's even better to see it on a fairly commonplace site like CNet. I think more and more people are realizing the snowjob Microsoft keeps trying to pull, and in the end that will be the thing that ends the monopoly.
Most systems ship with a CD-R now (and if you don't get one, that's just silliness anymore), so why not just burn the recovery partition to CDs?Voila, instant recovery disks. Me personally, all I want is the OS and any hardware-specific software on CD. Screw the rest of it...it's mostly marketing crap anyway that just cruds up the drive. I hate these companies that want to tell me I need all their "go to this site, they paid us" links and software. Sell me a computer with an OS, and that's it. Can't do that, then you don't get my money.
LOL...been there, did that, got a few t-shirts to show for it. My wife still works with it on a daily basis. I know EXACTLY how "dumb" that emulator actually is. Yeah, it's got a few nice perks, but for the most part it's still the same thing as it always was. Now it just comes with pretty colors.
Point was that the hardwired dumb terminals themselves went the way of the dodo about 8 years ago. There are still a few locations with them, but it's mostly a PC world now. They just came up with a nifty bit of programming to make the PC act and talk like one of those terminals within the confines of the program. Amazingly enough, it still gets the same 4 second request to response time anywhere on the network in normal conditions. Considering how many requests go over that system in an hourly basis, that's pretty darn impressive.
It used to. I still remember the old nasty green screen dumb terminals that every airport and agency had. Nowadays, they use an emulator on a PC to get the same functionality.
Hate replying to myself, but clarification here after a second read. This part does bother me (in relation to the "Thomson Multimedia's proposed SmartRight copy protection"):
Content owners, for example, can start charging consumers every time their digital content is re-distributed within the home, or viewed several times during a certain number of days specified by them.
Um, can we say DivX? That scheme will surely fail just like DivX did (and the way the "official" digital music sites are). People don't like to pay for what they feel they already have.
Better idea...have us pay for the equipment and then let it be done. Charging for retransmission means your equipment won't be bought, and no money. Even the marketdroids should understand that concept.
I don't give SmartRight two years lifespan on the market, if it even makes it to market.
Ok, I'm all for fair use rights (if you couldn't tell by the sig and the link), but I'm looking at this in a different light. I don't see this as squashing fair use. Encrypting means the PPV that I paid for and I'm broadcasting within my house can't be swiped by the dude next door who sets a receiver close enough to his outside wall. My set of devices are all keyed to a certain encryption, so I can watch what I want anywhere I want in the house, but nobody can intercept it. That actually protects my rights, most specifically privacy.
:)
This also keeps people from setting up "pirate" TV stations and such to broadcast the latest boxing match (*cough*fixed*cough*) to everyone on the block. I admit that might be a flawed reason because of FCC and whatnot, but I'm trying to demonstrate the logic here. This doesn't seem so much like a "copy-protect" as a "transmission-protect" method.
It's worth following, though
I couldn't find a single ad amongst the links. I did get an X10 pop-under, but all the news links were completely legitimate. I'm betting on a script error that threw the ad to the main window instead of a popunder, but that's not my point.
If you can't replicate a situation, it cannot be taken as fact. Since the link in question wasn't included, it's impossible to say what really happened. However, (prefaced with IANAL) this kind of "news" reporting treads dangerous ground, as you're saying something that's potentially defaming a corporation and there's no viable proof. Editors, be more careful next time. I don't want to see this site die in a cyberspace libel suit (or something similar).
"Hey you, come over here. I've been watching your for 2 hours, and I'm not sure if picking your nose is illegal, but let's see if the courts think that is obscene" (yeah, bad analogy)
/.ers, is the real obscenity.
I don't think that's a bad analogy. That's just about what's happening with the copyright vs. fair use issues in America and apparently the world. The real problem is that too many times the person under indictment doesn't have the same financial (and thus legal) power to prove the law is flawed as say a mega corporation who has near endless resources to "prove" the law is correct.
To extend your analogy, you've been arrested because nose-picking is obscene, but AOL-Time Warner helped put that law into place and they can spend $15 million on lawyers and lobbying to make sure the law is proved right. You can't afford that much, so you're already fighting on a non-level field. Most likely, you'll settle for a small fine or sentence, and now the law has been "proven" to work...even though no good argument against it has been presented in court.
And that, my fellow
Nice to see there's a business case out there now against profiling Internet users for ads. Too bad it will most likely be looked at as a fluke failure ("oh they charged too much, we'll charge less") that won't stop the practice. Doubleclick ultimately failed in this venture because they found themselves in a PR fiasco. They gave people a way to opt out, and a lot of people did it. If I was buying advertising, I wouldn't pay the extra for a service that was slammed in the news and that people could choose not to use. Doesn't mean some marketroid out there won't still think it's a great idea.
We haven't heard the last of the advertising profiles. There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, though. The decision will ultimately be decided by the Net surfers who choose to avoid intrusive advertising.
(The parent was moderated down as flamebait, and rightfully so)
Wait 'til you find out that you'll need to know REAL SUBJECTS like MATH and PHYSICS to get a degree.
Figured it out already. Also have figured out how much of that I use in real life. Nada. I sometimes use the tech writing part, but that's about it. Calculus? Useless to me. Thermodynamics? Pointless. If it wasn't for the valuable life lessons I learned in college (like don't mix beer and liquor), I can pretty much count it a waste.
Don't get me wrong, I wish you the best, but I like how the world cycles around and Degrees are important once again.
Are they now? Funny that no one in my particular programming shop has one (well, maybe one person), and we're all doing quite well. That's due to the fact we do our jobs with a high level of quality, not because we have some piece of paper on our walls.
I spent 6 years in college, and they were well spent. I survived the dot-com boom unscathed, never been unemployed one day in my life, and I get to do cool stuff.
Just by the mere fact you used "cool stuff" in a sentence indicates you're a young pup. I've never been unemployed a day in my working life that wasn't by choice, and actually even those days were paid for by vacation. No degree, just lots of experience.
Some day you're going to come to the same realization that a lot of people have, and that's that your little piece of paper has very little to do with your career. It's the experience you gain and the choices you make. Sure, that paper may get you in a few places more than without it. However, if you don't have the savvy, the work ethic, or the experience to handle the job, that piece of paper will be following you right out the door.
Hey it's Slashdot, since when did we get graded on spelling? :)
Anyway, that should be "uninformed". No offense was meant to any of our fine armed forces, although I'm sure they have a different meaning to the acronym MUD. Goodness knows they have acronyms for everything else (brother was USAF, so I know).
When I was in college, I "lost" several of my friends for a few weeks because they discovered a MUD (Multi User Dungeon for the uniformed). They spent every waking hour down in the computer labs, only coming up for food when the delivery boy came. They neglected class, sleep, and basic hygeine, all so they could power up these non-existant characters which they would eventually no longer use years down the road. It was a pretty pathetic scene, and a couple of them actually dropped out of school because of it.
There's a difference between playing a game all night once in a while and completely cutting off friends and family. In terms of mental disorders, it becomes a problem when you cause distress to yourself and those around you. I learned early on to walk away from the computer once in a while, and I completely avoid MUDs and MMORPGs because of their potential to addict. It's fun to escape once in a while, but when the escape becomes your life you need help.
Fair use is dependant upon owning the physical medium...The way things are going currently, you are never going to own a purely digital work
That's the way the record companies would like to see things go. They would eliminate CDs altogether and have the media under their control completely. They WILL turn the music industry into their form of Divx (not the good format, but the bad business model). They'll make you pay for every listen, and if your player gets wiped, tough you'll pay for it again.
It's all about the control, pure and simple. What the record industry hasn't figured out yet is this is a battle they've lost. Tech companies support MP3 and copying files to disc or memory sticks. Customers expect the ability to make compilation disks and send their music to an iPod. Take that away, and the customers will simply find another way to do it. The RIAA is going to find, very quickly, that no one wants to play their reindeer games anymore.
You're exactly right in your thoughts.
If I remember correctly, the analogy is similar to comparing a phone company and a dialup ISP. The cable companies are like the phone companies, they provide the wiring, the hardware, and the ability to connect. @Home is the ISP, providing the IPs and servers and connection to the Internet as a whole. The cable companies signed on with @Home, and once @Home is gone the hardware's still there but there's no server to go to. It's a modem without an ISP, simple as that.
I do feel bad because I have a lot of friends who don't have land-based phone lines anymore. They switched to cable for the computer and cell phones for phone use. If their service lapses, they're going to be SOL.
I don't see any reason why Excite won't kill the service tonight. They've got nothing to lose, since they're already bankrupt. Shutting off service just stems the bleeding. The other companies are going to get hurt by this, and it's going to put high-speed internet access in a bad light.
But, I guess this is what happens when one company controls the lion's share of internet access. Back in the day of local ISP's, one of them going under wasn't the end of the world. Can you imagine what would happen if AOL or MSN turned off their service? (and yes, I'm bloody well expecting a smartaleck response there).
I'm just glad I never got rid of my dial up access. I have the feeling my friends are going to be coming over to get their net fix during the outage.
I only wish that companies like Handspring would consider the impact of their actions before unleashing something like this on innocent commuters.
I do agree that driving while distracted is a bad thing. I curse at more cellphone yakking drivers a day than anything else. But to say that the manufacturers of the device are to blame? I can't abide by that logic. The devices aren't to blame, it's the stupidity of the user. I tried talking on a cell phone and driving ONCE...and I realized how my driving suffered, so I never did it again. It seems some people are unable to make that logical jump, or they're unwilling to sacrifice that "convenience" to possibly save their life or someone else's.
Aside from that part of the argument, I don't see how a Treo makes the situation worse. Cell phones already exist, as do PDAs. Any of the above behavior is already out there, and I don't think the Treo's audience is Joe Blow. Most average folk won't pony up $400 for a phone when (insert phone company name here) is giving them away with service. Two handed dialing? Maybe that'll make em realize how stupid phone use and driving put together are when they can't dial without releasing the wheel.
They should have complained under DMCA or Copyright, but using a trademark law? Puhleeze.
Of course, anyone with half a brain cell still active should realize that the DMCA is custom built for this kind of complaint. Of course, the DMCA is a law built to protect companies from their own stupidity, pure and simple. "Hey look, it's illegal for you to crack our simple encryption, so we don't have to make it decent. Yeah, a five year old with an abacus could decrypt it, but we've made the abacus illegal because it's a decryption tool."
Between this and our speech/privacy rights being blatantly ignored, I think this country's headed for a real quick meltdown. It's painfully obvious the people making and enforcing laws don't have a clue as to how the Digital Age works, so they fear what they don't understand. That fear is being used to push laws that defy everything this country used to stand for. It's truly pathetic.
I just don't understand the appeal of these dinguses
The appeal is simple. It's a dedicated box that you don't have to worry about drivers or hardware conflicts with. True Plug and Play, just set it up and go. Load times are usually much less, and errors are not tolerated. So, when you get a console game, you expect it to work right the first time, no tweaks needed. Great for the non-technically inclined who doesn't understand how all the components in a computer work. Plus, if you have a PC already, you don't have to worry about a gamer monopolizing the computer when you have work to do.
FYI Veteran's Day was yesterday.
Heh...that should be "flagrantly", huh? :) That's what happens when my coworker (female) breaks out that powerful Bath and Body lotion. Kills the brain cells faster than alcohol. :)
So many holes in this rant, which ones to choose? Let's go with this one.
I can sell my Copy of XP if i wish, if i sell my NFL tickets it can be scalping.. Microsoft doesn't price point XP, they give it a value. I can buy XP and sell it for 30 bucks or 300 bucks, whatever the consumer is willing to pay. I can't do that with Baseball tickets, nfl tickets ore phone service.
Try selling your copy of XP online, and watch how fast MS stops you because of licensing issues. If you actually sell it on the street, they could still nail you if they find out. You can resell your sports tickets at face price without violating scalping laws. Phone service is a service, not a product, and thus is non-transferable.
Or how about this one?
So why all the resistance on microsoft? Why not make it a perfect world and attack the NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA and your local telco megopoly who restrict your choices and charge you exhuberant prices and rip off the consumer.
Because there are other sports and other phone options, and for the most part those don't do such blatant anti-competitive practices. You don't see the NFL trying to create a baseball team. M$ wants to control the entire computing experience and then some...and they make no bones about it. And of course, the biggest point is that MS has been found to be in violation of law for their monopolistic practices, and yet they still fragrantly defy the law. That makes them a viable target for criticism, pure and simple.
Gates said: "Really, the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that's identical with millions and millions of machines"
No, the reason you see open source is because people want the ability to customize code to their own personal needs without having to license said code from a monolithic company known for overcharging. Mr. Gates needs get rid of the god complex. Open source has nothing to do with identical desktops and everything to do with control of the code. This statement is just more overgrandizing and makes him look even more out of touch with the industry than he already is.
The RIAA doesn't realize that every time they go after someone, it just increases the visibility of file sharing and gets more people involved. Napster climbed in popularity after people found out they were being sued (thanks to American media). Now it's happening again.
As has been said before, the RIAA is going to have to realize that what they're doing is simply feeding the very beast they're trying to defeat. They must adapt or be tossed aside as obsolete. So far, the RIAA has shown no desire to adapt and as such are being boycotted and otherwise damaged by the very customers who fund their legal pursuits.