Re:Great News! Where do I send my expenses claim?
on
Ballmer on Linux
·
· Score: 1
Something similar happened when a recent Microsoft security patch slightly changed the way that hidden fields worked and broke my Web forms. Does anyone have Steve's email address so that I can send in my expenses claim?
The UI is pretty good and intuitive, but there are some annoyances. For example, when I registered I filled out some 12 fields of info including user name and submitted. Of course, my username was already in use, but rather than present the otherwise-ok-filled-in form and let me change the username, or offer similar alternatives, it made me go "back" in my browser and re-enter everything into the emptied fields. That happened twice (I saved the info the 2nd time in anticipation, but it's still unnecessarily unfriendly.)
Fields only become empty because the website emptied them either by design or incompetence. Any site that damages or erases filled in fields when it does not accept the data is broken, no exceptions.
This place needed a lot more work and a lot more testing before it was released to the public. (Unless they released it to the hordes at Slashdot as a way of (extreme load) testing!) But they should indicate it's got (serious) bugs and is still being worked on (along with a good way to report them as they are found). It's got lots of things that need to be fixed before it's even close to the kind of quality we should expect for a site to visit for that kind of purpose.
All of which sounds really neat, if not entirely original and a bit milquetoast (hey -- no "C.A." a la craigslist?) Or at least it would be if there were anyone else registered in the area.
They probably do not know what they are doing (this is not a criticism, often you start one of these things and learn what it should morph into over time) and are new at this. Also the site is new, and hasn't had much exposure so it hasn't had much opportunity to develop an audience. Some of these large portals have had many years to define their focus and obtain their audience. But if they are going to put up an alpha-software based site in order to discover what needs to be fixed, they should indicate this and let people know how to report problems.
If you don't want or like to interact with your neighbors IRL, why in the world would you do want to do it over the net?!??
Your argument presumes we can find neighbors around us or that we have no interest in them. A lot of people work long hours at work, then come home and do not know people around them. Or they are busy with their own lives and don't have the kind of time it would take to get to know people around them.
What could the internet possibly add here worthy of i-neighbors existance????
Being able to find other people based on a shared interest who were able to find the same site. We could squeeze 5 minutes to visit a web site and look around a few times a day. Raising a solid 1/2 hour to visit some local social gathering might not be possible for the time-starved people in most metropolitan areas, presuming you can find parking for a couple hundred people all at the same place. Or even twenty people (you ever seen how hard it is to find a place to park in most metropolitan areas and how terrible public transportation availability often is>)
Freakin bake some brownies, ring the doorbell and shoot the shit for a while
Going up and ringing the doorbell works fine when you knew or could get to know your neighbors and only had one or two in the area, and when you have the time to do that. That's a little bit hard to do when, if I draw a circle of, say, 300 meters around my place and there are 500 people living within that circle, it makes it a bit difficult. It also makes it hard when a lot of people are working 12-hour days. And you have to be picking the right sort of person to go visit; I don't think a neigbor down the street would consider it appropriate for me to come by to visit with his wife!
This at least provides some way for people to locate others who might have common interests and can then arrange possibly to have some sort of meeting - real or on-line - once they have found each other.
First, it told me my e-mail address was invalid. I may have typed that in wrong, but I see other problems. It has a space for nearby neighborhoods but no way to declare them. It has me signed up to a neighborhood I never picked 3000 miles away from me, that I can't get rid of. If I try to subscribe to that neighborhood so it will allow me to leave it, it says I'm already subscribed but doesn't provide an unsubscribe link but it does for all others. Difficult navigation between areas. Has place for picture of neighborhood but no apparent way to upload it (uploading of one's own picture works okay).
After I've used it more than 10 minutes I will probably discover more things, but that's all for the moment.
But will Balmer/MS put indemnification in writing?
on
Ballmer on Linux
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Finally, Ballmer argued that companies should be wary of the lack of indemnity from lawsuits, such as the suit filed by The SCO Group Inc. against DaimlerChrysler AG, IBM, Novell Inc. and others over parts of the Linux operating system that SCO claims infringe on elements of the Unix operating system that it owns.
"In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims," he said, noting that Microsoft could be forced to swallow a $550 million judgement if it loses its ongoing case with Eolas Technologies Inc., but that its customers would be protected.
So far it looks like the courts have generally been handing SCO their ass on a platter, but that's beside the point!
I'd really like to ask the question, will Ballmer, on behalf of Microsoft, put that in writing? Will Microsoft provide a written guarantee that they will indemnify their customers against claims of infringement by their software? Not from anything I've seen. So far, here is what Microsoft has put in writing:
END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR MICROSOFT PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE
PRERELEASE VERSION OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS SERVER 2003, STANDARD OR ENTERPRISE EDITION FOR AMD64-BIT SYSTEMS [ ]
15. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. [ ] MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES... ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON -INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE.
MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION (RETAIL) END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR MICROSOFT SOFTWARE [ ]
16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. [ ] Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Software and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS [ ] ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE.
(Emphasis added)
I really don't see where Microsoft is giving anything to people above what Linux is giving, i.e. nothing, except people can see the Linux source code and it is possible if something infringing is present it can be removed.
"I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt," Ballmer said. "I just think people should go out and research this for themselves."
Well, I have researched it for myself and gone right to your company's written EULAs and read them, Mr. Ballmer. Unless and until Microsoft is willing to give (or sell) written indemnification for non-infringement then all your claims represent are a worthless cant of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
The issue in the original item that the above article refers to is not that the people at Sinus are doing a parody of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, nor is it because they are doing a type of parody where they pick on some movie, the issue is that they apparently are using the same or a similar name to "Mystery Science Theatre 3000."
Now I understand why people complain about errors in the articles on/.
His example only selects cards belongng to one issuer (because the first 4 digits are the same), and only got 8 hits. Let' not be pikers and do the whole range of Visa Cards; the number 4 followed by 15 digits. And let's do Mastercard (50-53 followed by 14 digits) while we're at it, let's not discriminate!
For Visa, I did this one and got 2450 pages of listings of credit card numbers. Doing the same for Master Card returns only another 481 pages - not just card numbers, but web pages containing numbers - and some are test pages to demonstrate how LUHN codes work, but I don't think they all are. Oh, let's not leave home without American Express, where we can find a whopping 7,780 pages of listings!
I don't think they are all tests. Some include the number, expiration date, plus the name, address and telephone number of some people who apparently placed orders on-line. A great way to commit fraud or implement identity theft, wouldn't you say?
My guess is that if you called some of these people you would find out that yes, that is their credit card number and they had no idea it had been exposed.
Oh, I forgot to troll for Social Security Numbers. Now that returns 7 million pages, most being things like zip codes and such, but it wouldn't be hard to do that by redoing the search on an automated basis by inserting the '-' where appropriate and generating several thousand searches. At random I picked a range and tried all Social Security 301-01 numbers, and got 115 pages. Not only that, but the text ad from Google was for a company that offered on-line searches of social security information! Very helpful too!
I was going to say that this is why they don't print the full credit card number on receipts anymore but a quick audit of my wallet shows that of the dozen or so receipts I had, 3 printed the full credit card number on the receipt. Bad bad bad. There's really no reason for that.
I wrote an order processing system for a local building concierge company to replace the DOS-based one they have. When it prints out the receipt, if they use a check or money order it prints the full number, but if they use a credit card it only gives the card name and the last 4 digits. The clerk can read it on screen if they need to verify it but it won't print out anything but the last 4 digits.
Also, some U.S. states mandate that receipts for credit cards only include last 4.
Some places are simply printing a transaction number and bar code on the receipt, which then allows the system to look up the original transaction, and as a result they don't even need your old credit card to issue you a refund if you bring something back. And it knows whether you paid cash, by credit card, stored card or gift card. Home Depot does a nice job with their system. Now that is an example of a good use of storing personal information, where it gives the customer MORE privacy, since even the clerk doesn't see or know the customer's credit card number, only the database does.
There is no fair use to take something that doesn't belong to you. - Jack Valenti
This, of course, is total bullshit. The purpose of fair use ("fair dealing" in the U.K.) is to allow someone to use - without permission - that is to take something that the copyruight doesn't belong to them. That is the purpose of fair use. Apparently Valenti thinks any use other than what the copyright owners decide they will let you have is unfair use, whether or not his opinion is the opposite of what the law says:
Now, fair use is not in the law. - Jack Valenti
107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. - 17 U.S. Code Section 107
"Now, fair use is not in the law." : Spoken like a true "bagman for the boys", a lobbyist whose only interest is to protect the entrenched pigs at the trough who hate competition and change, hate their customers and see them all as criminals, and want to bleed them white.
The main reason programmers appear to have an ego about their work is that as you get older and more experienced you're expected to know more about software engineering than the people younger or less experienced than you.
I have found that I have done some of my best work by listening to and working with other people even when I thought they knew less than I did. In some cases I took someone else's code, in which they did a particular thing which I found hard to do, (and what they had done amazed me) added to it and improved what they had done by a considerable factor, and they were amazed by what I had done. All of us doing things where we consider our own work nothing special, and are willing to improve upon other people's work. "If we reached the sky it was only because we stood on the shoulders of giants."
I have seen a number of otherwise very good people end up either burned out or let go because they were too arrogant to consider that other people might have better ideas than their own. In different companies. In different places. In different types of jobs. I was often the one left standing when others had come and gone, because I was willing to accept good ideas no matter where they came from. In one case a customer said something to me that resonated so much I told my boss that I was no longer going to continue a practice we had been doing because, while it mollified most customers, it was dishonest. As it turned out, when the company decided to move (and I turned down an offer to go with them) I was the last person they kept on the job. Because I did my job well, with integrity and with the willingness to suppress ego and accept ideas from any source if they were good.
If you appear egoless and unashamed to draw from others' advice, you appear to be ignorant and unmotivated once you get to be a certain age or get a certain amount of experience.
If you're unwilling to draw from others' advice, you're never going to be able to do much above the lowest grade of low worker. A good leader delegates responsibility and authority to subordinates. When a decision needs to be made, they listen to input from various sides, including suggestions, then make a decision. They may go along with the suggestions of others or they may make a different one. The hallmark of a good leader is that they are willing to make decisions and to correct them when they are wrong, not the unwillingness to accept that someone lower than you in seniority or authority may have a good idea or one even better than your own.
you can use a Nintendo 64 as an expensive DVD Player out of the box as well as a game machine
I am guessing you meant Playstation 2? Just a bit of nitpicking
You're not really nitpicking. My apologies, you are absolutely correct, it is the Playstation 2 that can play DVDs, not N64. But the point is still made, there are at least two other game consoles which effectively cost less and do more.
Are you trying to say the government should never be allowed to eavesdrop on criminal communications even with a warrant?! I can't distinguish between that and anarchy. Can somebody please help me?
I have no problem with them tapping phones with a warrant. What I have a problem with is their refusal to pay the costs involved, but instead requiring the entire rate base to pay the cost of the wiretaps that they want to use instead of having to pay for them out of their own budget. If the FBI had to pay the actual cost of each wiretap themselves they'd be a lot more selective about which ones they made, as opposed to indiscriminate ones because it doesn't cost them anything.
There, what more need one say about that awful book?
A lot more was said, when it went on trial:
Ulysses
is not an easy book to read or to understand... The study of Ulysses is, therefore, a heavy task... It is brilliant and dull, intelligible and obscure by turns. In many places it seems to me to be disgusting...
- United States v. One book called 'Ulysses', John M. Woolsey, United States District Judge, December 6, 1933
I'm wondering if that reporter really wrote that article on plagiarism himself, or if he hired one of those people who write papers to do it for him! And how about the guy who wrote the reference to it in Slashdot? And how do you know anything here is original? Come to think of it, most of the stuff here probably isn't original anyway...
And another thing - what happends when they go out of business? I can still play my Dreamcast, and even get more used games for it. Will I be able to play the "Phantom" for years afterwards, or will they cut off the supply of games when they go bankrupt or if "Phantom 2" comes out? I don't think many consumers will want to be tied to a company like that - remember the DiVX debacle.
I had forgotten that; thank you. You have it exactly right; this is DiVX all over again. (And not the one that is popular for ripping DVDs either!) And it will end up the same way as the original DiVX; part of the dustbin of history.
It's not "pimpage". Its being up-front about the fact that the news source used in the story is somehow affiliated with Slashdot. By 'not hiding' that fact, they hope it helps to quell possible accusations of bias or other improprieties.
You are exactly correct. Any professional - or at least semi-professional - journalistic operation gives in their articles a reference to any facts that may give an implication of bias in that story, even if there is no bias. For example, whenever MSNBC does an article on their Website about Microsoft, good or bad, they - correctly in my opinion - state upfront that Microsoft is a partner in the operation of the network.
Specs of machine inadequate to play DOOM 3 which means it's not even a reasonably high enough grade machine.
No CD or DVD drive means you can't play other games on it and also means its limited to finite capacity (internal disk space) meaning eventually some games you paid for have to be be erased to fit new ones on it. If those become unavailable you're out of luck.
System design makes it essentially useless for any other purpose except playing games (you can use a Nintendo 64 as an expensive DVD Player out of the box as well as a game machine, and you can with an XBOX if you buy a remote for it).
Company believes its system is unhackable which means they are in for a shock when people figure a way to hack it.
System runs off of a modified version of Windows XP, which not only means they're paying a fortune for licensing fees, and their supplier is one of their competitors, it also means it's vulnerable to all of the typical problems of a common PC.
Service charge is a whopping $29.95 a month, not including premium games, which are an extra charge.
Can only play games bought for a machine on that machine, you can't take the game someplace else, like you can with a Nintendo or XBox
If you stop your subscription the games no longer work and all of them that you 'bought' go bye-bye
If the company goes out of business, all the games you 'bought' will no longer work and all of them go bye-bye
I think if you don't have an Internet connection you can't use the machine at all.
(This one is from personal knowledge, not the article) A system like this called 'The Game Channel', which I think was from Sega, tried this a few years ago over Cable, for $9.95 a month. It went bust
If they get less than 200,000 subscribers they will be losing money and probably go under, fast; if they get more they will be deeply in debt, and based on the numbers, there is exactly $0 available to pay back that debt after deducting costs.
Competitors not giving away hardware can undercut them on price, operate a system much cheaper and will make a profit.
System depends upon access to broadband (access via dial-up would be agonizingly slow and probably unusable) which means the customer is going to have problems with others if the other people's uses (net phone, downloading, telecommuting) mean there isn't enough bandwidth available.
In short, there are so many advantages to this system I can't see how it can possibly succeed^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h fail!
Sending a hash over the wire means that the hash itself is the password. Your hash is just as goot as a plaintext password at that point. Hashes are used for comparing plaintext, not for the submitions of your actual credentials.
Are you so sure? Let's say my password is 'skylon'. And this is the 43rd time I've logged on since the count started. If I was just sending the hash of my password, I'd send c556d8e60370fc5c1ca4f497d830779c But I'm sending my password concatenated with the login number, so what I send is that long sting, plus the characters '43' so what I would be sending this time is dedbfd46cb332688963c0f574f67299e . The other side can run an md5 check and confirm it without needing to know the plain text of my password. The next time I login what I have to compute is c556d8e60370fc5c1ca4f497d830779c44 which encrypts as 5dc47c5ba09cf11d081a1466a736fb67
So the password changes every time.
I sent Comcast (his isp) the IRC logs & the network monitor logs.
They sent me a generic response saying "blah blah blah.. this is an automated response".
And thats it.
So how do other/.ers deal with situations like this?
You call Comcast - I think their HQ is in Philadelphia, but look up their website to be sure - find their headquarters, or use whois on their domain name, then ask for their legal department, then simply ask the person who answers how to spell the name of their general counsel, and their fax number. ("Hi, I was supposed to write your General Counsel a letter but I forgot to get their name.") Then you send them a message stating that at a certain date and time someone at such-and-such an IP address hacked into your system, (and give each such item for each of the attempts, even if it takes several pages) and is continuing to do so, and Comcast has taken no action to stop this party despite repeated requests, and if they do not you will presume that someone in authority at Comcast is either approving of or acquiescing to this activity and that if they don't make it stop, you will have no choice but to take all appropriate action including but not limited to filing charges for computer trespass and a civil suit for damages.
Send a copy by snail mail.
They do not know if you'll sue but this should get a response. You might also make it clear that if the attacks stop you have no interest in any further legal action. This lets them know: get rid of your problem, and you won't be their problem.
Looks like the Federal circuit is fractured on this issue
I agree. There was a case involving a company called "Lucas Nursery" where a dissatisfied customer created a website to criticize the company with its name on it. A 6th Circuit appeals court in Cincinnati decided this was legal and was not cybersquatting, and Lucas Nursery could not do anything about it.
This is probably off-topic but I found it kind of humorous.
At the bottom of the document it says "Copyright (C) yada, yada, yada All Rights Reserved"
"All rights reserved" is a notice used to claim rights under the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty between the U.S. and most South American countries. I don't think Japan is a member of the BA Convention, but even if it was, they're still using a notice that has no meaning, since Japan - like the U.S. - is a member of the Berne Convention and so is every other country that is a member of the Buenos Aires Convention. In short, the additional notice is totally superfluous and has been since 1988!
It's bullshit, I don't see how any of you can think this is a good ruling!? If I own a domain name, I can do *WHATEVER* I want to do with it. If someone has a problem with it, they should have bought the domain name before I did. If you want to "settle" it, then bring out the pocketbooks because it will be one hell of a pretty penny.
Actually you can't register a domain name for the express purpose of forcing the legitimate owner of a trademark to pay money to you to get it from you. That's cybersquatting and it's not allowed. You would lose the domain, they would probably get it for free, and you might even be ordered to pay their legal costs too, I'm not sure.
However, this is a bad ruling because it confllicts with at least one other case where a domain name (Lucas Nursery) taken out to criticize someone using the name of the party being criticized is a valid First Amendment use and they have no right to stop you from using that domain name (with their name as part of it) to do so.
This is the sort of issue - courts in different circuits giving different results on identical issues - that makes the issue ripe for the U.S. Supreme Court to take on the issue. That may happen. And if it does, I suspect that Falwell will lose. It wouldn't be the first time Falwell has lost in the Supreme Court over someone saying something about him that he didn't like.
If Falwell has his name trademarked, then he's engaged in "trade" and should not enjoy any tax-exemption benefits, for himself, or his "church" companies.
One has the right to register a trademark or service mark even if one is not "selling" something; the Department of Defense registered the term "ADA" as a trademark for a computer language. This allows them to have a say so in whether or not the product is compliant with the standard.
It has been a common practice for some religious organizations to register their symbols as trademarks. (The Church of Christ, Scientist has registered their circular emblem, for example.) "Watchtower" and "Awake" are two pamphlets put out by the Jehovah's Witnesses; should they be denied the right to register the name of their publications as trademarks same as any other magazine? Isn't a particular church entitled to protection of its brand of God against tarnishment by another Trap of Satan(TM)'s brand of God?
This reminds me of an incident in New York City where people took advantage of thieves to solve a problem.
There was a garbage collector's strike, and I think people had to keep their garbage on their property, and it was backing up. Well, if you toss your garbage someplace else, that's littering and you can be fined. So, what some people did, was they put their garbage in boxes wrapped with nice paper, possibly a bow, and put it on the seat of their car, with the window open. You can guess what happened to their garbage...
Slashdot Mirror
This place needed a lot more work and a lot more testing before it was released to the public. (Unless they released it to the hordes at Slashdot as a way of (extreme load) testing!) But they should indicate it's got (serious) bugs and is still being worked on (along with a good way to report them as they are found). It's got lots of things that need to be fixed before it's even close to the kind of quality we should expect for a site to visit for that kind of purpose.
They probably do not know what they are doing (this is not a criticism, often you start one of these things and learn what it should morph into over time) and are new at this. Also the site is new, and hasn't had much exposure so it hasn't had much opportunity to develop an audience. Some of these large portals have had many years to define their focus and obtain their audience. But if they are going to put up an alpha-software based site in order to discover what needs to be fixed, they should indicate this and let people know how to report problems.This at least provides some way for people to locate others who might have common interests and can then arrange possibly to have some sort of meeting - real or on-line - once they have found each other.
After I've used it more than 10 minutes I will probably discover more things, but that's all for the moment.
I'd really like to ask the question, will Ballmer, on behalf of Microsoft, put that in writing? Will Microsoft provide a written guarantee that they will indemnify their customers against claims of infringement by their software? Not from anything I've seen. So far, here is what Microsoft has put in writing:
From their site, For Business (Windows 2003 Server):
And from their site, For Consumer (XP HOME):
I really don't see where Microsoft is giving anything to people above what Linux is giving, i.e. nothing, except people can see the Linux source code and it is possible if something infringing is present it can be removed.Well, I have researched it for myself and gone right to your company's written EULAs and read them, Mr. Ballmer. Unless and until Microsoft is willing to give (or sell) written indemnification for non-infringement then all your claims represent are a worthless cant of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
Paul Robinson
Now I understand why people complain about errors in the articles on /.
For Visa, I did this one and got 2450 pages of listings of credit card numbers. Doing the same for Master Card returns only another 481 pages - not just card numbers, but web pages containing numbers - and some are test pages to demonstrate how LUHN codes work, but I don't think they all are. Oh, let's not leave home without American Express, where we can find a whopping 7,780 pages of listings!
I don't think they are all tests. Some include the number, expiration date, plus the name, address and telephone number of some people who apparently placed orders on-line. A great way to commit fraud or implement identity theft, wouldn't you say?
My guess is that if you called some of these people you would find out that yes, that is their credit card number and they had no idea it had been exposed.
Oh, I forgot to troll for Social Security Numbers. Now that returns 7 million pages, most being things like zip codes and such, but it wouldn't be hard to do that by redoing the search on an automated basis by inserting the '-' where appropriate and generating several thousand searches. At random I picked a range and tried all Social Security 301-01 numbers, and got 115 pages. Not only that, but the text ad from Google was for a company that offered on-line searches of social security information! Very helpful too!
Paul Robinson
Also, some U.S. states mandate that receipts for credit cards only include last 4.
Some places are simply printing a transaction number and bar code on the receipt, which then allows the system to look up the original transaction, and as a result they don't even need your old credit card to issue you a refund if you bring something back. And it knows whether you paid cash, by credit card, stored card or gift card. Home Depot does a nice job with their system. Now that is an example of a good use of storing personal information, where it gives the customer MORE privacy, since even the clerk doesn't see or know the customer's credit card number, only the database does.
Paul Robinson
I have seen a number of otherwise very good people end up either burned out or let go because they were too arrogant to consider that other people might have better ideas than their own. In different companies. In different places. In different types of jobs. I was often the one left standing when others had come and gone, because I was willing to accept good ideas no matter where they came from. In one case a customer said something to me that resonated so much I told my boss that I was no longer going to continue a practice we had been doing because, while it mollified most customers, it was dishonest. As it turned out, when the company decided to move (and I turned down an offer to go with them) I was the last person they kept on the job. Because I did my job well, with integrity and with the willingness to suppress ego and accept ideas from any source if they were good.
If you're unwilling to draw from others' advice, you're never going to be able to do much above the lowest grade of low worker. A good leader delegates responsibility and authority to subordinates. When a decision needs to be made, they listen to input from various sides, including suggestions, then make a decision. They may go along with the suggestions of others or they may make a different one. The hallmark of a good leader is that they are willing to make decisions and to correct them when they are wrong, not the unwillingness to accept that someone lower than you in seniority or authority may have a good idea or one even better than your own.I'm wondering if that reporter really wrote that article on plagiarism himself, or if he hired one of those people who write papers to do it for him! And how about the guy who wrote the reference to it in Slashdot? And how do you know anything here is original? Come to think of it, most of the stuff here probably isn't original anyway...
- Specs of machine inadequate to play DOOM 3 which means it's not even a reasonably high enough grade machine.
- No CD or DVD drive means you can't play other games on it and also means its limited to finite capacity (internal disk space) meaning eventually some games you paid for have to be be erased to fit new ones on it. If those become unavailable you're out of luck.
- System design makes it essentially useless for any other purpose except playing games (you can use a Nintendo 64 as an expensive DVD Player out of the box as well as a game machine, and you can with an XBOX if you buy a remote for it).
- Company believes its system is unhackable which means they are in for a shock when people figure a way to hack it.
- System runs off of a modified version of Windows XP, which not only means they're paying a fortune for licensing fees, and their supplier is one of their competitors, it also means it's vulnerable to all of the typical problems of a common PC.
- Service charge is a whopping $29.95 a month, not including premium games, which are an extra charge.
- Can only play games bought for a machine on that machine, you can't take the game someplace else, like you can with a Nintendo or XBox
- If you stop your subscription the games no longer work and all of them that you 'bought' go bye-bye
- If the company goes out of business, all the games you 'bought' will no longer work and all of them go bye-bye
- I think if you don't have an Internet connection you can't use the machine at all.
- (This one is from personal knowledge, not the article) A system like this called 'The Game Channel', which I think was from Sega, tried this a few years ago over Cable, for $9.95 a month. It went bust
- If they get less than 200,000 subscribers they will be losing money and probably go under, fast; if they get more they will be deeply in debt, and based on the numbers, there is exactly $0 available to pay back that debt after deducting costs.
- Competitors not giving away hardware can undercut them on price, operate a system much cheaper and will make a profit.
- System depends upon access to broadband (access via dial-up would be agonizingly slow and probably unusable) which means the customer is going to have problems with others if the other people's uses (net phone, downloading, telecommuting) mean there isn't enough bandwidth available.
In short, there are so many advantages to this system I can't see how it can possibly succeed^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h fail!For those that don't want to have to download the decision and use Acrobat, you can view it as ascii text here.
c556d8e60370fc5c1ca4f497d830779c
But I'm sending my password concatenated with the login number, so what I send is that long sting, plus the characters '43' so what I would be sending this time is
dedbfd46cb332688963c0f574f67299e
. The other side can run an md5 check and confirm it without needing to know the plain text of my password. The next time I login what I have to compute is c556d8e60370fc5c1ca4f497d830779c44 which encrypts as
5dc47c5ba09cf11d081a1466a736fb67
So the password changes every time.
Send a copy by snail mail.
They do not know if you'll sue but this should get a response. You might also make it clear that if the attacks stop you have no interest in any further legal action. This lets them know: get rid of your problem, and you won't be their problem.
At the bottom of the document it says "Copyright (C) yada, yada, yada All Rights Reserved"
"All rights reserved" is a notice used to claim rights under the Buenos Aires Convention, a copyright treaty between the U.S. and most South American countries. I don't think Japan is a member of the BA Convention, but even if it was, they're still using a notice that has no meaning, since Japan - like the U.S. - is a member of the Berne Convention and so is every other country that is a member of the Buenos Aires Convention. In short, the additional notice is totally superfluous and has been since 1988!
However, this is a bad ruling because it confllicts with at least one other case where a domain name (Lucas Nursery) taken out to criticize someone using the name of the party being criticized is a valid First Amendment use and they have no right to stop you from using that domain name (with their name as part of it) to do so.
This is the sort of issue - courts in different circuits giving different results on identical issues - that makes the issue ripe for the U.S. Supreme Court to take on the issue. That may happen. And if it does, I suspect that Falwell will lose. It wouldn't be the first time Falwell has lost in the Supreme Court over someone saying something about him that he didn't like.
It has been a common practice for some religious organizations to register their symbols as trademarks. (The Church of Christ, Scientist has registered their circular emblem, for example.) "Watchtower" and "Awake" are two pamphlets put out by the Jehovah's Witnesses; should they be denied the right to register the name of their publications as trademarks same as any other magazine? Isn't a particular church entitled to protection of its brand of God against tarnishment by another Trap of Satan(TM)'s brand of God?
This reminds me of an incident in New York City where people took advantage of thieves to solve a problem.
There was a garbage collector's strike, and I think people had to keep their garbage on their property, and it was backing up. Well, if you toss your garbage someplace else, that's littering and you can be fined. So, what some people did, was they put their garbage in boxes wrapped with nice paper, possibly a bow, and put it on the seat of their car, with the window open. You can guess what happened to their garbage...