DMCA and DMCA-likes go far beyond what is required by the Bern convention and its signaturies.
DMCA is purely a Mickey-Mouse law.
It is positevly obscene that Disney (at al) used old. royalty-free stories and turned them in to megabucks and is now denying those same rights to others.
Melbourne AU, commute between 45 minutes and 1hr 15 one way. I felt like I was a life support system for my car (Petrol, insurance, maintenance, etc). Nearly spent more money on the car than rent. (Remember, not every country has Petrol as cheap as the US. Most countries i've been to it has costed been significantly more).
Move city and country. I can walk inside 15 minutes, or if it's snowing I can catch a bus or two in about the same. I don't have a car. My yearly bus ticket (actually covers the whole country) costs less than any ONE of insurance, petrol, renting a car park space.
I keep hearing stories that my coworkers have about thier cars and repair costs. Makes me laugh how much money I'm saving. I'm still ahead if I take occasional taxi or hire car.
The money saved NOT commuting is much better than a pay rise. It's tax free. ($100 saved is still $100 saved. Get a pay rise and out comes the tax, insurance, superannuation, blah, blah, blah).
Remember: If it's got tits or tyres, it means trouble.
1 Lock users down severely. Users should never be installing/removing office. It should also be against your IT policy to allow unauthorused access to company resources. c/f "receptionist's son". Support costs go dramatically down when there are no write permissions to "Program Files", etc, etc. No local Administrator rights, unless a severe justification in writing and countersigned by thier boss.
2 Even if you can't bill the hours at least report them. A good helpdesk package that lets you enter hours on problem AND lets you pull reports out is a starting point. Doesn't look good when (say) accounting is bitching about expenses and also consuming most of your resources.
3 Get some financial expertise on-board. Preferably with some IT knowledge. Have them not only analyse your costs, but all help report your SAVINGS.
I think if you let off all the nukes in the world and did a body count, it'd be much less favourable than the amount of carnage all the suicide bombers could wreak. (ie, you only need a handful of nukes to kill many, many millions)
Unless said suicide bomber was riding the nuke out of the airfraft, waving cowboy hat.
Infact, calling all suicide bombers!: let them all off as soon as possible. Can't stand the waiting. There can't be more than a couple of hundred of you there, at the outside a few thousand.
Shortly after, no more suicide bombers and we can get back to whatever we were doing.
Airlines would love to have just (say) 1 profitable plane departing, say, once a day. They hate the fact that some people prefer to travel in the morning, some in the afternoon and some after work in the evening.
Bigger is probably better on the trunk routes, but smaller and more efficient in the regional routes.
2000 people? That's going to hit mighty hard when it tumbles out of the sky...
I think you're on the right track. "Horses for Courses".
When I go home it's about 26 hours in a plane. If they can make it cheaper, I'm all for it. I'll fly Europe to Asia, then hopefully direct to Melbourne (Australia) and avoid Sydney. Perfect for the Titanic on wings.
But, while in Europe, I'm going basically short haul 1 to 2 hour flights. Small, economical, fast.
I'd say there's a market for both of these planes. Plenty of diverse travel types in different locations.
I seem to recall reading that one of these babies going to be so fuel efficient that it actually was more fuel efficient (with a nearly full load) than even driving a small car from A to B? 3 litres per 100 km or thereabouts? OK, aviation fuel against petrol, but still...
Older software typically needs admin rights. Newer software 'designed for xp' or '2k' or whatever integrates a lot better. 99% of your headaches gone with the logo software.
Of course, some of this is just documentation. If suppliers specified which parts of the registry or file system an unpriviliged user needed access to, it could all be scripted.
Newer, logo'd software typically needs only Admin rights to install, which can be taken care of nicely by Group Policy. User settings go in HKEY\CurrentUser where it belongs.
Of course, with Unix and unix-likes, everything was installed as root and you'd typeically have a.myapp/config folder in your home folder. Much better way of working.
I worked years at a Service Station nights and weekends, getting thru Uni.
Pissheads from the Pub a couple of hundred meters away would come down and start fights, start smashing things, being arseholes.
Guys with a Joints or 10 would come in with a couple of pizzas, listen to some music that I had for a minute or two and just buy Violet Crumble, Mars Bars and purple Soothers and wander in to the night.
I know which altered conciousness I prefer to meet (and be).
I think there are many reaons, Bhophal is just one, that the concept of "limited liability" has had it's day.
Sure, be a corporation. That's good for the banks, tax and writing cheques. But, full personal legal liability if you fark up. Pleasant side effect of stopping trusts and shelter companies from hiding assets.
Shareholders, workers and directors alike.
Would certainly make most people think twice about signing off on shonky practices. Someone must have made a decision to turn off, or cut maintenance to, inbuilt safety systems.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as a free lunch. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
I paid for the account, I get to decide who uses it. I pay (in part) for the infrustructure, I get to decide who uses it.
With TV, pay or otherwise, I choose to receive what is on (or not). I pay for that privilege. I have not choice with a spammer. They are hijacking my resources. There is a big difference.
I'll be the ultimate judge of what I wish to receive on my paid for resources. I don't publish my email address very often. I suspect it was my virus infected friends that let my address out.
That is neither carte blanch nor permission to anyone to use my address.
Having my email address is not an invitation to spam. The same way that, having my car keys (because say, I accidentially dropped them), is not an invitation to steal my car.
You also forget that the US is not the world. Many places still have download caps or pay per MB. Each spam is bandwidth that those users cannot utilise.
No, I consent to watch the TV or read the paper. I see the ads. If I don't want the ads, I don't watch/read. I know that free-to-air TV is free and that the ads pay for the production of the TV show or part pay for the cost of production of the newspaper.
Mail is my service. I paid for it. I pay for (by ADSL fees) the email server. My company pays me to manage it's Exchange Server services.
The Spammer paid nothing for the use of these resources, that I DID NOT consent to. That's theft. The exact legal definition of theft varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction... but it runs pretty close to "the permanent unconsented deprivation or resources".
The US First Amendment can go take a flying jump when someone steals my resources. Sox Box meaphor is good here. Stand on a soap box and start preaching/rallying, I can avoid you or ignore you. Charge me to pay $1.99 a minute, I'M NOT PAYING (except where I consent to).
I'm more and more thinking that the ultimate regulation is the concept of incorporated entities. And, over time, I've got less and less support for that concept.
Incorporated entities (companies, trusts, etc) are great vehicles for making money. Legal spearation of owners from liability and a prime directive of profit. Corporations have virtually only one legal death (bankruptcy). So long as it makes money faster than taxes and inflation eats it away, it can live until it owns the world.
I think we'd have a lot more ethical behaviour if owners and executives had full legal repercussions of an incorporated entities actions. Company-X makes drugs that steralise you? Owners and executives have full criminal and tort consequences? I think another round of testing might be on the cards... or at least full disclosure of the facts.
This would also solve the problem of $2 shelf companies (but not asset and jurisdiction shifting).
Full free trade amoung people, but let's not distort the market with phoney legal inventions.
Where's my "none of the above" option... that's a valid vote. I think that even the Soviet Union had that option, even when there was only one candidate.
Yeah, I would even like some form of proportional representation, the more views the better. Much better than "the only difference is the color of the ties". (Red v's Blue).
Disenfranchisement, voter coercion, misinformation, insane levels of funding required to run a campaign (that necessarily leads to corruption of the political process), partisan election boards, rampant gerrymander. These are just some of the problems that the US election system faces. Non-transparent vote counting is just one more obstruction.
Don't think the US is ready to be called a democracy just yet.
I can trust everyone one of my users individually. I can't trust them as a group.
Here's a few words: Legal liability
Which can be generated by any and all of the following: - Unauthorised software installs (Hey Suzi, did you see that new great program my boyfriend downloaded last night. It's right here. Stephanie and Sonia, I can install it for you too!) - Sabotage (malicious and accidental) (Lets say Bob in accounts is in debt and gambling. Does he really need access to the new fabrication designs that the nice man in the Casino said he'd pay cash for?) - Illegal and/improper usage of materials (warez ftp sites, mp3 repository) - Porn (Suzi, did you see what site Bob was surfing. I'm going right to a lawyer and cry 'sexual harassment'. I don't care that it was a link on Slashdot.org)
Then there's the ever helpful "I know computers too" that for example, installs a rouge DHCP server, mail server and/or WINS server. Also, enables sharing on the PC so that files go the wrong spot. Then he installs printer shares on his PC his little Tommy can make a big poster on the Marketing A1 size plotter.
My professional arse is on the line here.
This list is just the beginning...
However, it's gross incompetance to ignore legit user requests. There's gotta be a system to get things done. A Helpdesk, Request for Change. If the Admins don't follow it, they should be sacked. If the management ignore it, or don't have one, sack them.
It's gotta be said here: but programmers love to operate, program, debug and test as QSECOFR/admin. I network admin, and I don't run as root on my linux box, have limited domain admin rights on XP normally (like password reset) and use a remote desktop to a domain controller for necessary tasks (about 10 minutes a day).
First thing that happens when we hire a new developer... "What's the qsecofr password, what the Administrator password, I need ALLOBJ access, i've written the program using Active-X that needs to be run as an administrator on the local machine" (Pick one or all).
I'll quite happily give them admin on thier own machine if they need it, but they had better test thier damn program on a lockdown machine before they submit it for deployment.
Hell, some clueless developer said he was a web developer. The entire page was one giant Active-X control with about three lines of html.
I'm lucky that the culture of my organisation is slowly waking up to these idiot developers. (We do have some good ones too). Now they actually have to have a development plan that includes testing outside thier own machine. Many times a program doesn't need Admin access to run, but a few specific registry keys or folders need to be opened up, they just don't know or don't document them.
I'm not surprised that Microsoft has trouble with security, the programmer culture that Microsoft has supported does not lend itself to thinking about it. Where's their new talent pool? Predominately developers that grew up with the MS programming monoculture!
Because the purpose of war is not to win, but to be fought.
Governments are only an (one of many possible) expression of power. The purpose of power is to get more power. Therefore war exists to change the conciousness of the citizens so that they will accept less and less freedoms and more and more controls.
The real unsaid war of a government is against its own citizens. War is just a way to achieve it.
The more abstract the goals the better. That means the war can take on infinite meanings and shades of grey... whatever is most convenient to the real goals of the moment.
Don't worry, I'm still telling various people* that they will NOT find kangaroos in Austria. I'm currently in Switzerland (not Sweden), and Austria is often their next destination. They get all disappointed after that...
* Who these people might be is left as an exercise for the reader.
Slashdot Mirror
In summary: The PATRIOT Act is a great catch-all, guilty until proven innocent.
DMCA and DMCA-likes go far beyond what is required by the Bern convention and its signaturies.
DMCA is purely a Mickey-Mouse law.
It is positevly obscene that Disney (at al) used old. royalty-free stories and turned them in to megabucks and is now denying those same rights to others.
Melbourne AU, commute between 45 minutes and 1hr 15 one way. I felt like I was a life support system for my car (Petrol, insurance, maintenance, etc). Nearly spent more money on the car than rent. (Remember, not every country has Petrol as cheap as the US. Most countries i've been to it has costed been significantly more).
Move city and country. I can walk inside 15 minutes, or if it's snowing I can catch a bus or two in about the same. I don't have a car. My yearly bus ticket (actually covers the whole country) costs less than any ONE of insurance, petrol, renting a car park space.
I keep hearing stories that my coworkers have about thier cars and repair costs. Makes me laugh how much money I'm saving. I'm still ahead if I take occasional taxi or hire car.
The money saved NOT commuting is much better than a pay rise. It's tax free. ($100 saved is still $100 saved. Get a pay rise and out comes the tax, insurance, superannuation, blah, blah, blah).
Remember: If it's got tits or tyres, it means trouble.
Obviously, it's server buyers that are the target market for this technology.
Windows is merely one of the possible options on a server. Linux and other Unix-likes are others.
Three points here:
1 Lock users down severely. Users should never be installing/removing office. It should also be against your IT policy to allow unauthorused access to company resources. c/f "receptionist's son". Support costs go dramatically down when there are no write permissions to "Program Files", etc, etc. No local Administrator rights, unless a severe justification in writing and countersigned by thier boss.
2 Even if you can't bill the hours at least report them. A good helpdesk package that lets you enter hours on problem AND lets you pull reports out is a starting point. Doesn't look good when (say) accounting is bitching about expenses and also consuming most of your resources.
3 Get some financial expertise on-board. Preferably with some IT knowledge. Have them not only analyse your costs, but all help report your SAVINGS.
I think if you let off all the nukes in the world and did a body count, it'd be much less favourable than the amount of carnage all the suicide bombers could wreak. (ie, you only need a handful of nukes to kill many, many millions)
Unless said suicide bomber was riding the nuke out of the airfraft, waving cowboy hat.
Infact, calling all suicide bombers!: let them all off as soon as possible. Can't stand the waiting. There can't be more than a couple of hundred of you there, at the outside a few thousand.
Shortly after, no more suicide bombers and we can get back to whatever we were doing.
Airlines would love to have just (say) 1 profitable plane departing, say, once a day. They hate the fact that some people prefer to travel in the morning, some in the afternoon and some after work in the evening.
...
Bigger is probably better on the trunk routes, but smaller and more efficient in the regional routes.
2000 people? That's going to hit mighty hard when it tumbles out of the sky
I think you're on the right track. "Horses for Courses".
...
When I go home it's about 26 hours in a plane. If they can make it cheaper, I'm all for it. I'll fly Europe to Asia, then hopefully direct to Melbourne (Australia) and avoid Sydney. Perfect for the Titanic on wings.
But, while in Europe, I'm going basically short haul 1 to 2 hour flights. Small, economical, fast.
I'd say there's a market for both of these planes. Plenty of diverse travel types in different locations.
I seem to recall reading that one of these babies going to be so fuel efficient that it actually was more fuel efficient (with a nearly full load) than even driving a small car from A to B? 3 litres per 100 km or thereabouts? OK, aviation fuel against petrol, but still
Actually, horses for courses.
.myapp/config folder in your home folder. Much better way of working.
Older software typically needs admin rights. Newer software 'designed for xp' or '2k' or whatever integrates a lot better. 99% of your headaches gone with the logo software.
Of course, some of this is just documentation. If suppliers specified which parts of the registry or file system an unpriviliged user needed access to, it could all be scripted.
Newer, logo'd software typically needs only Admin rights to install, which can be taken care of nicely by Group Policy. User settings go in HKEY\CurrentUser where it belongs.
Of course, with Unix and unix-likes, everything was installed as root and you'd typeically have a
Yeah, It's called an MBA. All that matters is getting the number to line up on the Excel spreadsheet.
Once you've done that you can collect your bonus, get promoted or a better job at another company and let somebody else worry about the mess.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The Magna Carta wasn't that great. It only upheld the rights of the Bishops. But it was a good starting point.
I'll second that.
I worked years at a Service Station nights and weekends, getting thru Uni.
Pissheads from the Pub a couple of hundred meters away would come down and start fights, start smashing things, being arseholes.
Guys with a Joints or 10 would come in with a couple of pizzas, listen to some music that I had for a minute or two and just buy Violet Crumble, Mars Bars and purple Soothers and wander in to the night.
I know which altered conciousness I prefer to meet (and be).
That's a really stringe thing to say.
... I'm off to the pub.
Limited liability is a legal construction.
You need a legal way to wind up a company or make a fresh start in the case of bad business decisions/bad luck, hence bankruptcy laws.
I don't think reinstating Debtors Prisions would really help anyone, do you?
Anyway
I think there are many reaons, Bhophal is just one, that the concept of "limited liability" has had it's day.
Sure, be a corporation. That's good for the banks, tax and writing cheques. But, full personal legal liability if you fark up. Pleasant side effect of stopping trusts and shelter companies from hiding assets.
Shareholders, workers and directors alike.
Would certainly make most people think twice about signing off on shonky practices. Someone must have made a decision to turn off, or cut maintenance to, inbuilt safety systems.
Repeat after me:
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
I paid for the account, I get to decide who uses it. I pay (in part) for the infrustructure, I get to decide who uses it.
With TV, pay or otherwise, I choose to receive what is on (or not). I pay for that privilege. I have not choice with a spammer. They are hijacking my resources. There is a big difference.
I'll be the ultimate judge of what I wish to receive on my paid for resources. I don't publish my email address very often. I suspect it was my virus infected friends that let my address out.
That is neither carte blanch nor permission to anyone to use my address.
Having my email address is not an invitation to spam. The same way that, having my car keys (because say, I accidentially dropped them), is not an invitation to steal my car.
You also forget that the US is not the world. Many places still have download caps or pay per MB. Each spam is bandwidth that those users cannot utilise.
No, I consent to watch the TV or read the paper. I see the ads. If I don't want the ads, I don't watch/read. I know that free-to-air TV is free and that the ads pay for the production of the TV show or part pay for the cost of production of the newspaper.
... but it runs pretty close to "the permanent unconsented deprivation or resources".
Mail is my service. I paid for it. I pay for (by ADSL fees) the email server. My company pays me to manage it's Exchange Server services.
The Spammer paid nothing for the use of these resources, that I DID NOT consent to. That's theft. The exact legal definition of theft varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction
The US First Amendment can go take a flying jump when someone steals my resources. Sox Box meaphor is good here. Stand on a soap box and start preaching/rallying, I can avoid you or ignore you. Charge me to pay $1.99 a minute, I'M NOT PAYING (except where I consent to).
Going one step further,
... or at least full disclosure of the facts.
I'm more and more thinking that the ultimate regulation is the concept of incorporated entities. And, over time, I've got less and less support for that concept.
Incorporated entities (companies, trusts, etc) are great vehicles for making money. Legal spearation of owners from liability and a prime directive of profit. Corporations have virtually only one legal death (bankruptcy). So long as it makes money faster than taxes and inflation eats it away, it can live until it owns the world.
I think we'd have a lot more ethical behaviour if owners and executives had full legal repercussions of an incorporated entities actions. Company-X makes drugs that steralise you? Owners and executives have full criminal and tort consequences? I think another round of testing might be on the cards
This would also solve the problem of $2 shelf companies (but not asset and jurisdiction shifting).
Full free trade amoung people, but let's not distort the market with phoney legal inventions.
An election does not make a democracy.
... that's a valid vote. I think that even the Soviet Union had that option, even when there was only one candidate.
Where's my "none of the above" option
Yeah, I would even like some form of proportional representation, the more views the better. Much better than "the only difference is the color of the ties". (Red v's Blue).
Disenfranchisement, voter coercion, misinformation, insane levels of funding required to run a campaign (that necessarily leads to corruption of the political process), partisan election boards, rampant gerrymander. These are just some of the problems that the US election system faces. Non-transparent vote counting is just one more obstruction.
Don't think the US is ready to be called a democracy just yet.
I can trust everyone one of my users individually. I can't trust them as a group.
...
Here's a few words: Legal liability
Which can be generated by any and all of the following:
- Unauthorised software installs (Hey Suzi, did you see that new great program my boyfriend downloaded last night. It's right here. Stephanie and Sonia, I can install it for you too!)
- Sabotage (malicious and accidental) (Lets say Bob in accounts is in debt and gambling. Does he really need access to the new fabrication designs that the nice man in the Casino said he'd pay cash for?)
- Illegal and/improper usage of materials (warez ftp sites, mp3 repository)
- Porn (Suzi, did you see what site Bob was surfing. I'm going right to a lawyer and cry 'sexual harassment'. I don't care that it was a link on Slashdot.org)
Then there's the ever helpful "I know computers too" that for example, installs a rouge DHCP server, mail server and/or WINS server. Also, enables sharing on the PC so that files go the wrong spot. Then he installs printer shares on his PC his little Tommy can make a big poster on the Marketing A1 size plotter.
My professional arse is on the line here.
This list is just the beginning
However, it's gross incompetance to ignore legit user requests. There's gotta be a system to get things done. A Helpdesk, Request for Change. If the Admins don't follow it, they should be sacked. If the management ignore it, or don't have one, sack them.
It's gotta be said here: but programmers love to operate, program, debug and test as QSECOFR/admin. I network admin, and I don't run as root on my linux box, have limited domain admin rights on XP normally (like password reset) and use a remote desktop to a domain controller for necessary tasks (about 10 minutes a day).
... "What's the qsecofr password, what the Administrator password, I need ALLOBJ access, i've written the program using Active-X that needs to be run as an administrator on the local machine" (Pick one or all).
First thing that happens when we hire a new developer
I'll quite happily give them admin on thier own machine if they need it, but they had better test thier damn program on a lockdown machine before they submit it for deployment.
Hell, some clueless developer said he was a web developer. The entire page was one giant Active-X control with about three lines of html.
I'm lucky that the culture of my organisation is slowly waking up to these idiot developers. (We do have some good ones too). Now they actually have to have a development plan that includes testing outside thier own machine. Many times a program doesn't need Admin access to run, but a few specific registry keys or folders need to be opened up, they just don't know or don't document them.
I'm not surprised that Microsoft has trouble with security, the programmer culture that Microsoft has supported does not lend itself to thinking about it. Where's their new talent pool? Predominately developers that grew up with the MS programming monoculture!
Because the purpose of war is not to win, but to be fought.
... whatever is most convenient to the real goals of the moment.
Governments are only an (one of many possible) expression of power. The purpose of power is to get more power. Therefore war exists to change the conciousness of the citizens so that they will accept less and less freedoms and more and more controls.
The real unsaid war of a government is against its own citizens. War is just a way to achieve it.
The more abstract the goals the better. That means the war can take on infinite meanings and shades of grey
Don't worry, I'm still telling various people* that they will NOT find kangaroos in Austria. I'm currently in Switzerland (not Sweden), and Austria is often their next destination. They get all disappointed after that ...
* Who these people might be is left as an exercise for the reader.
Not everywhere.
Not in the south. At least in Australia, summer starts Dec. 1 and Winter starts June 1.
Yeah, and what happened to Harold Holt? As if that wasn't an assasination ...
Or you can blame the CIA OR the Chinese OR them both (according to some of the thoeries anyway).
Note to self: Gotta take some more of those pills to keep me calm.