if people are dying because our brand of capitalism requires artificial scarcity in order to get research done, then we need to change our economic system sharpish
I agree with the sentiment of your post. However, your [implied] argument in favor of a bona fide free market for this drug, unhindered by government intervention such as patents, is unwise. The reason we have this resistant-bacteria problem in the first place is because of unrestricted "free market" distribution of antibiotics. We need smart scientific controls on how such drugs are administered, not free market madness.
Right after I got done reading Dave Barry's responses, I Googled for "Dave Barry" because I'm a nerd and I do that kind of thing. At the top of the page was this nifty little feature:
Most stores have a policy. If you open the software for any reason, you can only exchange it. No refunds, no store credit, nada.
This has always irritated me. This is so clearly a conspiracy to create an illegal marketplace. It is technically store policy -- there's no law that says opened software cannot be returned, notices in Wal-Mart notwithstanding [1]. The U.S. Commerical Code explicitly states that if you do not have the opportunity to inspect merchandise before purchase, you have the right under law to return the merchandise for a full refund [2]. But just try and find any retailer who will take back opened software, music, or movies. This essentially results in a marketplace where people are tricked into buying products they would not have otherwise purchased. That's not legal by any means.
[1] Wal-Mart posts signs that claim "copyright laws" prohibit the return of opened software, music, and movies. There is no such law.
[2] Best Buy and some other stores escape culpability by posting gigantic notices of their return policy, which you can easily read before you buy. This is the same as putting "AS IS" on every box of software, music, and film. It's legally OK, but still maintains an illegal marketplace.
MS are free to serve up whatever they like on their servers.
True if and only if "MS" does not hold a monopoly in the personal computer OS market, use that monopoly to jam their browser down everyone's throat, buy up major web properties such as Hotmail, and then cause said properties to output broken code to 3rd party browsers. So, which one of these is false?
Granted, who cares about msn.com, but this is not legal behavior for a monopoly.
The language, IMHO, isn't very good; I much prefer Python
OK, Python is a great language. No one disputes that. But I don't get why people rag on Java so much. I am what you might call an "amateur" programmer. I've coded for projects, but it's definitely not my main thing. I was able to pick up coding in Java in no time flat, and I find that it's extremely suited to how I want to think about code. Stop disparaging Java just because it's not C/Python/Perl, etc.
Goddamit I hate myself for feeding trolls like you, but what the frell. (If this post isn't proof enough that Micros~1 employs Slashdot readers, I don't know what is.)
It boiled down to the 'old boy' network whent he choice was made for SimDesk
No fucking duh. This isn't a Houston thing, it's a government thing, especially local government. Nearly every deal is cooked before bidding begins, because people will always tend to go with who they know rather than who they don't.
Almost all of us are MS certified types (I have my MCSE)
Mm hm.
The running gag is that the change over in hardware in terms of on site servers and bandwith enhancements will cost us more than three times our current agreement with MS for our existing systems.
Which PR flak at Micros~1 wrote that for you? This is so typical it makes me want to barf. The reek of FUD is overwhelming. "I'm an insider, so I should know -- this will cost us more than just giving in to MS!" Supporting evidence neatly omitted, as usual.
Alternatives in using pure *nix were also presented
Crap on a cracker! I thought you were suggesting this was a cooked deal. Now there were some *nix offers that were rejected on their merits? And I seem to recall the article saying that only SimDesk put in a bid. Who were these mysterious bidders that no one but you seems to know about? Could you be any more a mouthpiece for MS?
Over half of our PCs would have had some kind of driver problem [with the *nix solution]
Uh, yes, you can be more of a mouthpiece. Fuck me, this one is almost a classic. Once again, the naming of specifics is missing.
...more than 2/3rds of our existing software...would have been rendered incompatible
Ding, ding, ding! The bid was for replacing the current suite of software, you clueless faggot. How astonishing that the old software would be rendered... wait for it... incompatible. Who the flying fuck cares if the new software can coexist peacefully with the old? It's a replacement.
Linux Mandrake - Good when it is good (i.e. installs without a problem and no strange configurations), but a hog to troubleshoot.
This is what keeps Mandrake from being a great OS -- desktop, server, or otherwise. If something doesn't come out of the box from Mandrakesoft, you can pretty much forget about it. I have moved every machine that once had MDK to something more, er, alterable like Debian or FreeBSD (which really shines in the turning-old-machines-into-dedicated-servers department).
Let me guess, "This page is best viewed in Internet Explorer." Mm hm.
I followed the link for the web design company and checked out some of the other sites they designed. I guess I need to "upgrade my browser" because Mozilla nightlies aren't cutting edge enough for these guys.
It's really unfortunate that an indie movie with such nice-looking production has such a crap-ass story. Apparently a guy is pissed off that the elves are immortal and he wants to go find them and burn their city down. Epic emotion that.
The corporation exists to make money. That is its sole purpose in life.
Actually, no. You learn this when you start up your own corp. Making money is why the stakeholders in a corporation invest in the corporation. The corp. itself has to have some other objective (e.g., making hammers), and you have to say what it is in order to be granted incorporation.
Er...I am as capitalistic as they come, thank you.
life is a bit different when you have a personal collection of value-added URIs to be publishing
And this refutes my post how? If you believe you will make money by publishing something on the web, then more power to you. I like it when entrepreneurs make money. But if your revenue model depends on breaking others' ability to use the web according to its design then fuck off. Go publish somewhere else.
If you don't want people reading your web pages and linking to them (or not) on their own initiative then don't publish web pages. Linking is a fundamental characteristic of the web. Objecting to it is like putting up a road-side billboard and then objecting when passing motorists read it ("Oh, but I only intended pedestrians to read my billboard!").
Come to think of it, I can't imagine why the producer of legitimiate information would object to having it linked from other pages in whatever way suits the linking page. So we're once again down to defending the corporation's right to profit. Sigh.
This is OT, but what the hell. Years ago when an 8088 was a nice machine I caught my mom "deleting" a WordPerfect document from her computer by backspacing through the entire thing. When I caught her she said she'd been at it for about 30 minutes when I showed up. Now the real kicker is that I showed her how to actually delete a file (in those days you used your word processor like a file manager), but after waiting for about 15 seconds (remember, 8088; it was probably a 30 second operation) she grumbled that the speed of the delete operation was too slow and would I please cancel this operation and let her return to backspacing so she could get done "deleting" her file without further delay. I think in the cartoon bubble over her head she imagined the computer was backspacing for her.
Amen to that! This is the point that needs the most education for businesses. Even if something is GPL there's nothing stopping you from pursuing different terms from the author. Afraid of the GPL "viral" effect? Ask for different terms.
Never is there any notion that the company creating the 3rd party libraries I use gets any rights at all to my software. Yet, if the library was GPL'ed tomorrow, all of a sudden my work should be free?
No, because you've already licensed it under separate terms. The library creators can't relicense what you've already got -- they'd have to take a Micros~1 (haha no dollar sign) approach and figure out how to force you to upgrade.
But that said, I agree with you (and Rosen).
Publishing a library is like putting up a billboard -- you don't get to choose who "uses" it once you put it out there. If you don't want people linking to your code, then for fsck's sake don't publish a library.
Have you used Windows XP lately? I installed it 10 days ago, and it's been up and running since.
OK, this is pure flame, but here it comes. I regularly see uptimes of 90 days or more on my Debian boxen. The only reason it doesn't get longer than ~90 is due to external forces such as lightning storms. Come back when you can play with the big boys.
I don't care if they want to promote VOD over PVRs. Let them. I can see the marketing logic: you don't need a PVR because you can get anything on demand anyway.
As long as that's their strategy, then this is a non-issue. I'll still have my PVR and skip all commercials (my VCR does that for me too) and timeshift/spaceshift 3/4 of what I watch. But if they have some other plan for getting rid of PVRs, then that could be cause for concern.
I think it's time Congress placed some hard-and-fast restrictions on the office of the Attorney General. Every person who gets placed in that job gets on a power trip and makes horrible decisions. If you read the after-the-fact accounts of what went on with CREEP and Nixon, those involved clearly state that they felt like anything they did was golden because they were making their plans in the AG's office with the AG sitting right there. We the people really don't need a single, non-elected office with that much power. It doesn't serve our interest at all.
IS this legal, even though noone can legally acces them? I didnt want them, i didnt pay for them.
Answer: Yes, it is legal. You are entitled to NOT purchase a computer from Gateway. When the government passes a law that requires you to buy a computer with 2,000 songs pre-installed, then you have something to bitch about. Until then, shop elsewhere.
If by "war" you mean our society will self-correct for this crap, then yes. There have been very few instances in U.S. history that have required us to actually shoot each other. But even if Disney and cohorts starting pointing guns at us, it wouldn't matter. Either one of two things will come of these Disney-like rights erosions:
The government will correct for the problem.
The market will correct for the problem.
If the government doesn't act the way people want it to, those representatives will be voted out of office. If a corporation doesn't act the way people want it to, it will go out of business.
[Rant on]It is simply impossible, even under threat of violence, to make American citizens do something they don't want to do. If I and sufficient of my fellow citizens want to record broadcast TV, then it will happen. Plain and simple. There may be a short-term issue, like there was during Prohibition, but it will get corrected. So even if government and corporations get together and literally point a gun at us to make us watch movies, that shit will be taken care of promptly.[Rant off]
The desktop, for me at least, is another story. I guess that I found debian fell short.
Hm. Ok, I know I'm being that annoying Usenet guy who says "It works for me!" but here goes: Debian on the desktop works for me. On my recently-assembled work desktop I had a nice, fresh, system on which to try stuff out. I first tried Mandrake 9.0, because I assumed it would be a better desktop choice. After about a day I started over and loaded Debian Woody instead. I think it took me about 1 hour longer to get Woody up and running to a KDE 3.0 desktop, but that included such things as recompiling the kernel for my hardware! (Few things bring more geeky pleasure than making your own kernel.deb.)
Yes Debian is geekier. But there is a good reason everyone keeps using this "refreshing drink of water" metaphor for it. It's like you've never had a satisfying computer-using experience and then you "get" Debian and you go "Ahhhhh..."
What will really stymie this thing isn't its technological benefits (as thin and as late-to-the-party as they are). Licensing is what hampers Microsoft the most when it comes to mobile devices. They can't cope with the concept of one system spanning multiple devices, or with the OS becoming an invisible player; they have to turn everything into a standalone PC (or close variant) in order for their licensing to make sense.
The standalone desktop PC model just isn't right for something like a mobile tablet. It should essentially be a thin client to a company server or to your actual desktop PC. But then it's not a standalone PC, and they can't abide that.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with the sentiment of your post. However, your [implied] argument in favor of a bona fide free market for this drug, unhindered by government intervention such as patents, is unwise. The reason we have this resistant-bacteria problem in the first place is because of unrestricted "free market" distribution of antibiotics. We need smart scientific controls on how such drugs are administered, not free market madness.
News: Dave Barry Answers Alert Slashdot Readers' Questions - Slashdot - 54 minutes ago
Neato!
This has always irritated me. This is so clearly a conspiracy to create an illegal marketplace. It is technically store policy -- there's no law that says opened software cannot be returned, notices in Wal-Mart notwithstanding [1]. The U.S. Commerical Code explicitly states that if you do not have the opportunity to inspect merchandise before purchase, you have the right under law to return the merchandise for a full refund [2]. But just try and find any retailer who will take back opened software, music, or movies. This essentially results in a marketplace where people are tricked into buying products they would not have otherwise purchased. That's not legal by any means.
[1] Wal-Mart posts signs that claim "copyright laws" prohibit the return of opened software, music, and movies. There is no such law.
[2] Best Buy and some other stores escape culpability by posting gigantic notices of their return policy, which you can easily read before you buy. This is the same as putting "AS IS" on every box of software, music, and film. It's legally OK, but still maintains an illegal marketplace.
True if and only if "MS" does not hold a monopoly in the personal computer OS market, use that monopoly to jam their browser down everyone's throat, buy up major web properties such as Hotmail, and then cause said properties to output broken code to 3rd party browsers. So, which one of these is false?
Granted, who cares about msn.com, but this is not legal behavior for a monopoly.
Here are more subjects to talk about with a telemarketer:
I find an increasing level of impatience with these tactics. They usually hang up pretty fast, plus you amuse your friends on your end of the line.
OK, Python is a great language. No one disputes that. But I don't get why people rag on Java so much. I am what you might call an "amateur" programmer. I've coded for projects, but it's definitely not my main thing. I was able to pick up coding in Java in no time flat, and I find that it's extremely suited to how I want to think about code. Stop disparaging Java just because it's not C/Python/Perl, etc.
It boiled down to the 'old boy' network whent he choice was made for SimDesk
No fucking duh. This isn't a Houston thing, it's a government thing, especially local government. Nearly every deal is cooked before bidding begins, because people will always tend to go with who they know rather than who they don't.
Almost all of us are MS certified types (I have my MCSE)
Mm hm.
The running gag is that the change over in hardware in terms of on site servers and bandwith enhancements will cost us more than three times our current agreement with MS for our existing systems.
Which PR flak at Micros~1 wrote that for you? This is so typical it makes me want to barf. The reek of FUD is overwhelming. "I'm an insider, so I should know -- this will cost us more than just giving in to MS!" Supporting evidence neatly omitted, as usual.
Alternatives in using pure *nix were also presented
Crap on a cracker! I thought you were suggesting this was a cooked deal. Now there were some *nix offers that were rejected on their merits? And I seem to recall the article saying that only SimDesk put in a bid. Who were these mysterious bidders that no one but you seems to know about? Could you be any more a mouthpiece for MS?
Over half of our PCs would have had some kind of driver problem [with the *nix solution]
Uh, yes, you can be more of a mouthpiece. Fuck me, this one is almost a classic. Once again, the naming of specifics is missing.
Ding, ding, ding! The bid was for replacing the current suite of software, you clueless faggot. How astonishing that the old software would be rendered ... wait for it ... incompatible. Who the flying fuck cares if the new software can coexist peacefully with the old? It's a replacement.
This is what keeps Mandrake from being a great OS -- desktop, server, or otherwise. If something doesn't come out of the box from Mandrakesoft, you can pretty much forget about it. I have moved every machine that once had MDK to something more, er, alterable like Debian or FreeBSD (which really shines in the turning-old-machines-into-dedicated-servers department).
Let me guess, "This page is best viewed in Internet Explorer." Mm hm.
I followed the link for the web design company and checked out some of the other sites they designed. I guess I need to "upgrade my browser" because Mozilla nightlies aren't cutting edge enough for these guys.
[rant off]
It's really unfortunate that an indie movie with such nice-looking production has such a crap-ass story. Apparently a guy is pissed off that the elves are immortal and he wants to go find them and burn their city down. Epic emotion that.
Actually, no. You learn this when you start up your own corp. Making money is why the stakeholders in a corporation invest in the corporation. The corp. itself has to have some other objective (e.g., making hammers), and you have to say what it is in order to be granted incorporation.
Er...I am as capitalistic as they come, thank you.
life is a bit different when you have a personal collection of value-added URIs to be publishing
And this refutes my post how? If you believe you will make money by publishing something on the web, then more power to you. I like it when entrepreneurs make money. But if your revenue model depends on breaking others' ability to use the web according to its design then fuck off. Go publish somewhere else.
Come to think of it, I can't imagine why the producer of legitimiate information would object to having it linked from other pages in whatever way suits the linking page. So we're once again down to defending the corporation's right to profit. Sigh.
This is OT, but what the hell. Years ago when an 8088 was a nice machine I caught my mom "deleting" a WordPerfect document from her computer by backspacing through the entire thing. When I caught her she said she'd been at it for about 30 minutes when I showed up. Now the real kicker is that I showed her how to actually delete a file (in those days you used your word processor like a file manager), but after waiting for about 15 seconds (remember, 8088; it was probably a 30 second operation) she grumbled that the speed of the delete operation was too slow and would I please cancel this operation and let her return to backspacing so she could get done "deleting" her file without further delay. I think in the cartoon bubble over her head she imagined the computer was backspacing for her.
No, because you've already licensed it under separate terms. The library creators can't relicense what you've already got -- they'd have to take a Micros~1 (haha no dollar sign) approach and figure out how to force you to upgrade.
But that said, I agree with you (and Rosen). Publishing a library is like putting up a billboard -- you don't get to choose who "uses" it once you put it out there. If you don't want people linking to your code, then for fsck's sake don't publish a library.
OK, this is pure flame, but here it comes. I regularly see uptimes of 90 days or more on my Debian boxen. The only reason it doesn't get longer than ~90 is due to external forces such as lightning storms. Come back when you can play with the big boys.
As long as that's their strategy, then this is a non-issue. I'll still have my PVR and skip all commercials (my VCR does that for me too) and timeshift/spaceshift 3/4 of what I watch. But if they have some other plan for getting rid of PVRs, then that could be cause for concern.
Answer: Yes, it is legal. You are entitled to NOT purchase a computer from Gateway. When the government passes a law that requires you to buy a computer with 2,000 songs pre-installed, then you have something to bitch about. Until then, shop elsewhere.
If by "war" you mean our society will self-correct for this crap, then yes. There have been very few instances in U.S. history that have required us to actually shoot each other. But even if Disney and cohorts starting pointing guns at us, it wouldn't matter. Either one of two things will come of these Disney-like rights erosions:
If the government doesn't act the way people want it to, those representatives will be voted out of office. If a corporation doesn't act the way people want it to, it will go out of business.
[Rant on]It is simply impossible, even under threat of violence, to make American citizens do something they don't want to do. If I and sufficient of my fellow citizens want to record broadcast TV, then it will happen. Plain and simple. There may be a short-term issue, like there was during Prohibition, but it will get corrected. So even if government and corporations get together and literally point a gun at us to make us watch movies, that shit will be taken care of promptly.[Rant off]
You have to build Mozilla yourself to get the XFT font-smoothing goodness. Compile with the
option. I haven't tried this yet myself. You have to get the code from CVS until the source tarballs are out later in the week.Hm. Ok, I know I'm being that annoying Usenet guy who says "It works for me!" but here goes: Debian on the desktop works for me. On my recently-assembled work desktop I had a nice, fresh, system on which to try stuff out. I first tried Mandrake 9.0, because I assumed it would be a better desktop choice. After about a day I started over and loaded Debian Woody instead. I think it took me about 1 hour longer to get Woody up and running to a KDE 3.0 desktop, but that included such things as recompiling the kernel for my hardware! (Few things bring more geeky pleasure than making your own kernel .deb.)
Yes Debian is geekier. But there is a good reason everyone keeps using this "refreshing drink of water" metaphor for it. It's like you've never had a satisfying computer-using experience and then you "get" Debian and you go "Ahhhhh..."
The standalone desktop PC model just isn't right for something like a mobile tablet. It should essentially be a thin client to a company server or to your actual desktop PC. But then it's not a standalone PC, and they can't abide that.