Actually, nobody said anything about anything abhorrent, the word used was aberrant. Of course if they had done as you ask, that really would be aberrant behaviour round here...
So, keeping that in mind, you think it to be immoral and illegitimate for me to destroy him and his business, were I in a position to?
Yes, absolutely:
1) There are laws in existence to prosecute exactly his type of behaviour; use them.
2) In destroying his business you are hurting his employees, their families, etc.
That'll probably be because no one uses that ~ mark - you are literally the first person I've seen use it, apart from one or two people who reference it in their sigs.
Just to echo the AC that also replied, I've been on Virgin cable for a couple of years in east London (Elm Park) and have absolutely no complaints at all - I frequently get 1.1MBps or more from my 10Mbps line. Compared to the atrocious time I had on my 8Mbps ADSL line (frequent drop-outs, throttling down to 30Kbps by the equipment at the exchange due to line problems, never connected at more than about 2Mbps and performed like 1Mbps, etc) it's an absolute dream.
That said, I do have friends who have had or are having a devil of a time with their service, and at least one is in north London, so it looks to be a bit of a postcode lottery.
Lets face it, if MS hosed up every other thing its ever done, Visual Studio is bar none the best coding IDE.
I code professionally in both Java and C#, and find using Visual Studio to be a painful experience compared to using Eclipse. The relative dearth of refactoring tools is the first thing that springs to mind, but even simple things like a lack of Eclipse's "open resource" and "open type" shortcuts (at least as of VS 2008, I've only just started using 2010 but can't see anything in it either) make a real, detrimental difference to my productivity.
I'm aware that a lot of the shortcomings can be addressed by third-party extensions, but out of the box Eclipse is so much better than VS it's not even funny.
On 2), they are talking about 0.5Mbps free to anyone, and up to 10Mbps free to their home broadband subscribers. No one is directly paying for it, at least as current envisaged. I imagine one possibility is that they hope this will increase uptake of their broadband service; think of it as an advertising campaign that's actually useful.
Also as others have mentioned Virgin Media is nothing to do with Branson, though that doesn't change your main point.
Under the same law it's technically "illegal" to tape something off the TV
No it is not; in fact time-shifting is explicitly listed as an exception in the law. For example, see section 8 of this page. What is illegal is recording broadcasts in order to build up a library of recordings (i.e. you can't keep the recordings forever), but time-shifting is definitely not illegal.
we're still talking about "piracy" in a non-piracy sense
People have been using piracy in the copyright infringement sense for centuries. You do have a point about the incorrect use of the word counterfeit though.
It's helpful to remember that while we geek-types tend toward being highly pessimistic, there are a significant amount of people who truly do live in a world where they believe nothing could possibly go wrong.
And yet my bet would be that the vast majority of them lock their doors when they leave the house, have insurance, etc.
That seems to be the point though - not only are the sources not included, they're not made available either. That means that you or I can download that binary and (incomplete) source distribution of EMACS, give it to someone else, and thus be in violation of the GPL as we cannot make the full source available.
Well quite apart from it being a complete hassle as you'll have to recreate all your contacts, copy your music, etc back to it, and so on, you'll also lose access to any apps you've purchased.
Apart from that sure, it's a great solution to Google's fuck-up.
Being private... means that you have control over who can access what of your personal data
I consider my name to be amongst the most personal of data about me, and just about the only bit that I can literally change at will. Here in the UK at least, you're at liberty to use whatever name you choose, and do not have to go through any official process to change it. Yes, some things (like getting a passport) are a hell of a lot easier if you do change it officially, but even that can be done online for a nominal fee from any of a large number of competing services.
Besides which, my girlfriend is in the process of building a business for herself. To that end, she uses a pseudonym - her real first name, but a more "appropriate" last name (she makes retro clothing). She has business cards and flyers printed, and has a blog, Twitter account, Facebook account, eBay store, etc, in that name; but cannot have a G+ account using it. Why not? Why should she be forced to explain to people that yes, she *is* her despite the different name?
Moreover, I can use any pseudonym I like as long as I don't use it on G+ which seems a reasonable trade-off. If your concern is that the CIA might get grandma's cookie recipe, then you're screwed if your family is contacting you through G+ but hopefully you're bright enough to do anything truly nefarious on a more secure channel.
My concern isn't with anonymity, it's with personal choice. I should be free to call myself whatever I want. On a more practical note, my girlfriend uses a pseudonym for her business (she makes and sells clothes, bags, etc) - she uses her real first name but a different surname, one that is more in keeping with her chosen profession. She uses this name on Twitter, Facebook, her blog, etc - but can't on Google+. Why not?
Homeowners can already breach water mains, sewage and gas pipes with varying degrees of Bad Shit happening if they are of a mind to. They tend not to however.
I know you have a 5 digits UID and that should bring you some respect
Why?
Though I do agree with you general point, of expecting that experts in the field working on this for months or years will probably have thought of anything we can come up with in a couple of minutes of reading an article...
The UK public has very much turned against the Murdochs; hacking celebs' phones is one thing, but the phones of the families of murder victims (especially when the victims are children)? That's just not cricket.
It would be a brave (or foolhardy) company that employed them now. No, this probably isn't going to see them unemployable and living in poverty, but it's going to deal their fortunes (both business and personal) a massive blow.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, nobody said anything about anything abhorrent, the word used was aberrant. Of course if they had done as you ask, that really would be aberrant behaviour round here...
While that's true, the main point - that you can't rely on any given download from Sourceforge to be crap-free - still holds.
So, keeping that in mind, you think it to be immoral and illegitimate for me to destroy him and his business, were I in a position to?
Yes, absolutely:
1) There are laws in existence to prosecute exactly his type of behaviour; use them.
2) In destroying his business you are hurting his employees, their families, etc.
Hijacking traffic like this is almost certainly a breach of RIPA and the Computer Misuse Act.
Both of which are UK laws.
That'll probably be because no one uses that ~ mark - you are literally the first person I've seen use it, apart from one or two people who reference it in their sigs.
Why bother with a pay-go mobile for texts if you can be connected to the web at 0.5mbps everywhere you go?
Well I for one won't be lugging my laptop (or even a netbook) around everywhere I go just so I can keep in touch with people.
Just to echo the AC that also replied, I've been on Virgin cable for a couple of years in east London (Elm Park) and have absolutely no complaints at all - I frequently get 1.1MBps or more from my 10Mbps line. Compared to the atrocious time I had on my 8Mbps ADSL line (frequent drop-outs, throttling down to 30Kbps by the equipment at the exchange due to line problems, never connected at more than about 2Mbps and performed like 1Mbps, etc) it's an absolute dream.
That said, I do have friends who have had or are having a devil of a time with their service, and at least one is in north London, so it looks to be a bit of a postcode lottery.
Lets face it, if MS hosed up every other thing its ever done, Visual Studio is bar none the best coding IDE.
I code professionally in both Java and C#, and find using Visual Studio to be a painful experience compared to using Eclipse. The relative dearth of refactoring tools is the first thing that springs to mind, but even simple things like a lack of Eclipse's "open resource" and "open type" shortcuts (at least as of VS 2008, I've only just started using 2010 but can't see anything in it either) make a real, detrimental difference to my productivity.
I'm aware that a lot of the shortcomings can be addressed by third-party extensions, but out of the box Eclipse is so much better than VS it's not even funny.
On 2), they are talking about 0.5Mbps free to anyone, and up to 10Mbps free to their home broadband subscribers. No one is directly paying for it, at least as current envisaged. I imagine one possibility is that they hope this will increase uptake of their broadband service; think of it as an advertising campaign that's actually useful. Also as others have mentioned Virgin Media is nothing to do with Branson, though that doesn't change your main point.
This has nothing to do with Branson, Virgin Media just licence the name and aren't actually part of the group.
To be fair he didn't say "don't bother checking it out", he just predicted that it'll be nothing particularly exciting.
Let's face it, he's right.
Therefore we can't time or format shift
Format shifting is illegal, which is utterly ridiculous, however time shifting is explicitly legal (see section 8).
Under the same law it's technically "illegal" to tape something off the TV
No it is not; in fact time-shifting is explicitly listed as an exception in the law. For example, see section 8 of this page. What is illegal is recording broadcasts in order to build up a library of recordings (i.e. you can't keep the recordings forever), but time-shifting is definitely not illegal.
we're still talking about "piracy" in a non-piracy sense
People have been using piracy in the copyright infringement sense for centuries. You do have a point about the incorrect use of the word counterfeit though.
It's helpful to remember that while we geek-types tend toward being highly pessimistic, there are a significant amount of people who truly do live in a world where they believe nothing could possibly go wrong.
And yet my bet would be that the vast majority of them lock their doors when they leave the house, have insurance, etc.
That seems to be the point though - not only are the sources not included, they're not made available either. That means that you or I can download that binary and (incomplete) source distribution of EMACS, give it to someone else, and thus be in violation of the GPL as we cannot make the full source available.
Well quite apart from it being a complete hassle as you'll have to recreate all your contacts, copy your music, etc back to it, and so on, you'll also lose access to any apps you've purchased. Apart from that sure, it's a great solution to Google's fuck-up.
Yes, and those reviews are marked as being associated with the Amazon Vine program.
Being private... means that you have control over who can access what of your personal data
I consider my name to be amongst the most personal of data about me, and just about the only bit that I can literally change at will. Here in the UK at least, you're at liberty to use whatever name you choose, and do not have to go through any official process to change it. Yes, some things (like getting a passport) are a hell of a lot easier if you do change it officially, but even that can be done online for a nominal fee from any of a large number of competing services.
Besides which, my girlfriend is in the process of building a business for herself. To that end, she uses a pseudonym - her real first name, but a more "appropriate" last name (she makes retro clothing). She has business cards and flyers printed, and has a blog, Twitter account, Facebook account, eBay store, etc, in that name; but cannot have a G+ account using it. Why not? Why should she be forced to explain to people that yes, she *is* her despite the different name?
Moreover, I can use any pseudonym I like as long as I don't use it on G+ which seems a reasonable trade-off. If your concern is that the CIA might get grandma's cookie recipe, then you're screwed if your family is contacting you through G+ but hopefully you're bright enough to do anything truly nefarious on a more secure channel.
My concern isn't with anonymity, it's with personal choice. I should be free to call myself whatever I want. On a more practical note, my girlfriend uses a pseudonym for her business (she makes and sells clothes, bags, etc) - she uses her real first name but a different surname, one that is more in keeping with her chosen profession. She uses this name on Twitter, Facebook, her blog, etc - but can't on Google+. Why not?
Homeowners can already breach water mains, sewage and gas pipes with varying degrees of Bad Shit happening if they are of a mind to. They tend not to however.
I know you have a 5 digits UID and that should bring you some respect
Why? Though I do agree with you general point, of expecting that experts in the field working on this for months or years will probably have thought of anything we can come up with in a couple of minutes of reading an article...
The UK public has very much turned against the Murdochs; hacking celebs' phones is one thing, but the phones of the families of murder victims (especially when the victims are children)? That's just not cricket.
It would be a brave (or foolhardy) company that employed them now. No, this probably isn't going to see them unemployable and living in poverty, but it's going to deal their fortunes (both business and personal) a massive blow.
James Murdoch's full name is James Rupert Jacob Murdoch. Don't ask me why they only used one of his middle names though.
And for the real geek, that should be Spider-Man not "Spiderman".