I'll field that one. My experience of people who seriously use terms like M$ or Windoze (or open sores for that matter) are generally either trolling, morons or fanatics (or some combination). In any of those cases, there seems to be little point to trying to have a constructive, reasoned argument with the person.
Well I can't vouch for what was said, but in my thankfully limited experience, OAS is a big steaming mess. I just pray they don't do *anything* to WebLogic, my experiences with it have been far, far better.
1) the "punishment decided in a courtroom or municipal office" isn't arbitrary, it's according to the guidelines that were (hopefully) set out following decades/centuries of experience
2) many of said whackos aren't in office - one would hope that such offices are held by people of rather more considered temperament. Certainly here in the UK witness the number of times that the tabloid press laments an apparently lenient sentence (often) versus a harsh one (never that I can remember in 33 years)
3) mob justice tends to be fickle - soft on those things that the mob favours (e.g. speeding, copyright infringement) harsh on those things it doesn't (e.g. beating up little old ladies, etc)
4) revenge begets revenge - I dare say you've heard the old maxim "An eye for an eye"? Well the whole point of that was to limit revenge to being proportionate; e.g. I beat up your brother, you beat me up - you don't kill me, my family and all my friends. Similarly if I beat up your brother and so you beat up mine, I don't go after you and your friends, then you after me and mine, etc
Just because someone works for the city doesn't magically make them less prone to emotion and irrational behaviour.
Indeed. However it does make them bound by established rules and subject to review, unlike a frenzied mob or sole revenge-driven party.
That's exactly what I was going to say - that's not clearly moral at all, that's simply revenge. It's the attractiveness of that sort of response that is part of the reason why we have laws, to stop people simply dishing out whatever punishment seems fit at the time.
It does, but there's nothing forcing you to use them - you can still grab a raw connection object yourself and hand-craft SQL concatenating strings without sanity checking them if you so wish.
Of course if you do you shouldn't be writing network-aware code.
programming in Java is like programming in C, but without the need to learn about pointers or good programming discipline
Well that really depends on your definition of "good programming discipline". If you mean "the sort of stuff you need to know not to shoot yourself in the foot in C", then okay. If you mean things like "checking your inputs, not blindly trusting data from unknown/unknowable sources, writing clear maintainable code, writing clear readable documentation, writing and running tests regularly, having separate development and live environments (at least), using source control, and any one of the other tens of things that are required in any non-trivial project" then your choice of language has absolutely no bearing on it.
Alternatively Wii games, by their nature, may have a higher replay value and greater longevity, leading to fewer sales because why buy more when you're still playing the ones you have?
From what I've seen of the Wii (= the games my ex has for hers) they're mostly about team/party play and replayable games, with games with a definite beginning, middle and end being in the minority - puzzle games, mini games like Wii Sports, etc.
HDCP (be it over HDMI, DVI or DisplayPort) is only required for playing back DRM-infested media at full resolution on DRM-infested OSes like Vista.
Or for playing it on any HD-DVD/Blu-ray player and HD TV for a disc that stipulates that it requires it. The studios have promised not to switch on that requirement on discs they release until 2009, but that's hardly iron-clad.
Incidentally, Vista only requires HDCP because it was that or not be able to play "DRM-infested" media at full resolution. While it would have been nice for MS to have taken that fight for us, given they back one of the formats it was never very likely.
As a stockholder you are never asked about whether you want your corporation to behave well.
Not explicitly, no - but they are asked to ratify the board's bonus scheme, to rubber-stamp appointments, that sort of thing. As another poster pointed out, they also have the opportunity to ask questions. That adds up to a lot of power - if enough stockholders took an interest in what their company* was doing and wanted to change it, they could.
One of the problems is that the majority of stock is held either by companies or by investment firms, or other people out purely to make money. As long as they're doing that, they don't care what the company does.
(* Don't forget the stockholders own the company, the board works for them. Sure, ownership is split across many, many people, and individuals generally have almost no voice, but they still own (part of) the company.)
What has to be remembered is that Google is a business, Red Hat is a business, News Corp is a business too, and yet none of them actively tried to sabotage the OLPC foundation they had contracted to be a part of. Somehow they can justify their participation to the stockholders, but Intel can't?
But Intel seem to have something to gain from this action - what would RedHat, Google or News Corp have to gain from sabotaging the project? They gain karma (and associated tax write-offs, hoped-for business increases, etc) by participating, but what could they possibly gain from "pulling an Intel" as it were?
I'm not saying it's right, just that it's not as clear cut as "Intel bad, others good" - it's much more like "Intel saw potential to profit more this way, others don't".
Indeed - there is in fact a specific exemption for recording broadcasts for the purpose of viewing/listening to them at a more convenient time. However, it also explicitly states that you are not allowed to keep the recording indefinitely, you're supposed to discard it. I don't remember there being any sort of time or viewing limit, just a note that you are not allowed to "build up a library of recordings" (or similar wording).
and they changed backspace from being "up directory level" to "back" as well, which also pisses me off
You mean they finally made the backspace key behave the same way in Windows Explorer as it does in Internet Explorer (not to mention Firefox)? About time too - I cannot tell you the number of times I've hit it in explorer only to go "Oh, yeah, up a level not back, d'oh".
When all software out there is Open Source, leaks will be found and closed. That would mean no more virusses.
Do you even know what a virus is? What about trojans? Hint - the amount of malware that actually relies on exploitable holes is very much smaller than the amount that relies on user error/naivety/root access.
You forgot one - you can store two or three DVDs in the space one VHS occupies. That was what finally tipped it for me, believe it or not - along with all the other disadvantages of VHS, I was simply running out of space for the damn things.
How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?
We don't. You do.:) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience. This is why it's important to read comments. You might find something that refutes, or supports, the story in the main.
You're right, it won't be because of DRM, it'll be because sales have shifted from physical albums to individual electronic songs.
But the majority of those sales will be to people with iPods. If you want a song to play on an iPod, it pretty much has to either be protected AAC, or mp3. Apple aren't licensing their DRM to anyone, so that leaves non-DRM mp3. So if they want to cash in on that lucrative market, they're going to have to drop DRM and go with plain mp3s.
Hence the about turn on DRM *is* due to a drop in CD sales, but that drop is *not* due to DRM.
No, although if you're caught having broken and entered or similar with such tools on you then you'll be charged with going equipped. I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted just for having them with them though, and not at least acting suspiciously. (And then I very much doubt that would go anywhere)
Hell, read any police-related UK blog or tabloid news site and you'll see the site and comments wailing about how lenient the courts are, with plenty of examples of genuinely very surprisingly light sentences (eg in extreme cases just a year or so for murder).
And that's while using the popular meaning of "hacker", rather than the correct one.
You've lost that battle; time to give it up. The CALD doesn't even list "skilled programmer" as an alternative meaning. Besides which, I've always heard hacker used to mean the opposite, someone who just goes in and attacks the code as though they were using a machete, with no subtlety and little real skill. Maybe that's a regional thing though.
Except it shouldn't only matter what "most" people watch TV for.
But the stations are ad supported, and can charge more for ad slots the more people watch. Therefore they need/want to tailor their shows specifically to get as many people watching as possible, therefore it matters very much to them what most people watch TV for.
Which means they're all competing over the same piece of pie, while there are other smaller pieces that nobody is trying to get at all.
Unfortunately I strongly suspect that those smaller pieces are vanishingly small compared to the majority.
Slashdot Mirror
That's true, but I really don't see where the GP used eV (or V) incorrectly.
Any more suggestions?
Yes - SMSes are sent over an entirely different channel with much reduced bandwidth and capacity.
I'll field that one. My experience of people who seriously use terms like M$ or Windoze (or open sores for that matter) are generally either trolling, morons or fanatics (or some combination). In any of those cases, there seems to be little point to trying to have a constructive, reasoned argument with the person.
...in which case it takes an evil motherfucker. Unfortunately the world doesn't seem to be short of them.
Well I can't vouch for what was said, but in my thankfully limited experience, OAS is a big steaming mess. I just pray they don't do *anything* to WebLogic, my experiences with it have been far, far better.
Oh, so many points...
1) the "punishment decided in a courtroom or municipal office" isn't arbitrary, it's according to the guidelines that were (hopefully) set out following decades/centuries of experience
2) many of said whackos aren't in office - one would hope that such offices are held by people of rather more considered temperament. Certainly here in the UK witness the number of times that the tabloid press laments an apparently lenient sentence (often) versus a harsh one (never that I can remember in 33 years)
3) mob justice tends to be fickle - soft on those things that the mob favours (e.g. speeding, copyright infringement) harsh on those things it doesn't (e.g. beating up little old ladies, etc)
4) revenge begets revenge - I dare say you've heard the old maxim "An eye for an eye"? Well the whole point of that was to limit revenge to being proportionate; e.g. I beat up your brother, you beat me up - you don't kill me, my family and all my friends. Similarly if I beat up your brother and so you beat up mine, I don't go after you and your friends, then you after me and mine, etc
Just because someone works for the city doesn't magically make them less prone to emotion and irrational behaviour.
Indeed. However it does make them bound by established rules and subject to review, unlike a frenzied mob or sole revenge-driven party.
After all, they keep giving us foreigners more and more reasons to avoid the US and spend our money elsewhere.
That's exactly what I was going to say - that's not clearly moral at all, that's simply revenge. It's the attractiveness of that sort of response that is part of the reason why we have laws, to stop people simply dishing out whatever punishment seems fit at the time.
It does, but there's nothing forcing you to use them - you can still grab a raw connection object yourself and hand-craft SQL concatenating strings without sanity checking them if you so wish.
Of course if you do you shouldn't be writing network-aware code.
Alternatively Wii games, by their nature, may have a higher replay value and greater longevity, leading to fewer sales because why buy more when you're still playing the ones you have?
From what I've seen of the Wii (= the games my ex has for hers) they're mostly about team/party play and replayable games, with games with a definite beginning, middle and end being in the minority - puzzle games, mini games like Wii Sports, etc.
Incidentally, Vista only requires HDCP because it was that or not be able to play "DRM-infested" media at full resolution. While it would have been nice for MS to have taken that fight for us, given they back one of the formats it was never very likely.
One of the problems is that the majority of stock is held either by companies or by investment firms, or other people out purely to make money. As long as they're doing that, they don't care what the company does.
(* Don't forget the stockholders own the company, the board works for them. Sure, ownership is split across many, many people, and individuals generally have almost no voice, but they still own (part of) the company.)
I'm not saying it's right, just that it's not as clear cut as "Intel bad, others good" - it's much more like "Intel saw potential to profit more this way, others don't".
Indeed - there is in fact a specific exemption for recording broadcasts for the purpose of viewing/listening to them at a more convenient time. However, it also explicitly states that you are not allowed to keep the recording indefinitely, you're supposed to discard it. I don't remember there being any sort of time or viewing limit, just a note that you are not allowed to "build up a library of recordings" (or similar wording).
You forgot one - you can store two or three DVDs in the space one VHS occupies. That was what finally tipped it for me, believe it or not - along with all the other disadvantages of VHS, I was simply running out of space for the damn things.
RTFFAQ Udo Schmitz: Linky.
You're right, it won't be because of DRM, it'll be because sales have shifted from physical albums to individual electronic songs.
But the majority of those sales will be to people with iPods. If you want a song to play on an iPod, it pretty much has to either be protected AAC, or mp3. Apple aren't licensing their DRM to anyone, so that leaves non-DRM mp3. So if they want to cash in on that lucrative market, they're going to have to drop DRM and go with plain mp3s.
Hence the about turn on DRM *is* due to a drop in CD sales, but that drop is *not* due to DRM.
No, although if you're caught having broken and entered or similar with such tools on you then you'll be charged with going equipped. I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted just for having them with them though, and not at least acting suspiciously. (And then I very much doubt that would go anywhere)
Hell, read any police-related UK blog or tabloid news site and you'll see the site and comments wailing about how lenient the courts are, with plenty of examples of genuinely very surprisingly light sentences (eg in extreme cases just a year or so for murder).
No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use.
Pure FUD. Vista runs just fine on my 2 year old PC. I broadly agree with your other points, but this does nothing but degrade your entire argument.