I find it interesting that the "Blame the Bailouts on Mr. Rogers?" author cites as Exhibit A of our "culture of narcissism" the nigh-legendary Mexican immigrant fruit picker who spoke no English and got a huge home loan. I repeat. MEXICAN. SPOKE NO ENGLISH.
Is it too much to expect the writer's own strawberry, er, cherry-picked references to support her basic thesis?
One of the problems with UAC (in Vista) is the way it shuts your system down cold. If you're running a video or playing a game, and another program triggers the UAC, then your game or video will stop until you deal with the UAC. That's annoying. Just block the install until I get around to it, don't block everything and force me to cater to the computer's needs. The other thing is that a program should have a way of identifying itself to Windows as an install. And you should be able to "allow" the entire install at one go, not get annoyed for each.exe that gets called up during the process.
There's one other important thing (at least in the US): lack of wireless access.
Back in the 70's and 80's luggable battery operated TV sets were somewhat popular. You could use them in on the porch, on the boat, at the game, even in the car. For a while Casio was making them smaller and cooler, eventually AA battery operated with LCD screens. But then, something happened, which as usual with our country, involved short-sighted greed. More and more people started getting cable TV, the exact kind of heavy watchers who would be more likely to buy a portable TV device. BUT, and this is where greed came into play, there was no way to access your cable channels with the portable TVs, and as cable and satellite became more and more powerful, the little TV sets became less and less useful. Instead of being used on trains, buses, and everywhere radios and mp3 players were used, they were stuck in their same little niches, the boat, the ballgame, etc. And eventually, professional sports made lucrative deals with pay cable and that further diminished portable TV's usefulness. And now, of course, the few remaining portable sets will be rendered useless by the digital switchover. (Meanwhile in Asia, digital broadcasts capable of portable reception are ubiquitous).
So, instead, people who wanted to watch TV wirelessly had to pay for the overpriced sports packs on their tiny cellphone screens. But since cellphones are just another little kind of computer, TV found itself flanked on that side as well. Basically, vanilla broadcast TV and cable are just running out of environments where they are more convenient than IP.
Fair enough, but when I said it would make more sense, I didn't mean from the end user perspective, but from the perspective of Microsoft Corp. and its torturous efforts to avoid the perils of Scylla and Charybdis, er, the Dept of Justice and the European Commission.
In Windows, certain programs are by default associated with particular file types. For example, by default mp3s are associated with WMP. This turnoff switch will likely do more than simply remove the shortcut, it will also remove the default associations.
Subsequently, if you want to actually reclaim the one-half of one percent of your hard drive being taken up by the unneeded applications, you can just go ahead and delete the files manually. Frankly, I don't think it's worth it, since other programs (even third party apps) may be expecting certain files to be present by default in Windows installations, and once you delete the file, you'll have to go fishing for your installation disk in order to restore the functionality. Except increasingly OEM computers DON'T COME WITH INSTALLATION DISKS, and if you forgot to make a restore disk, you'll be very sad.
But I partially agree with some of the comments here: It would make more sense (IMO) for Windows to greet you with the following choice upon initial configuration:
1) Enable All Default MS Windows Helper Applications 2) Do not install Default MS Windows Helper Applications. Just install the basic MS Windows operating system. (note, may affect some functionality of 3rd party applications) 3) Expert: Selectively install/enable/uninstall/disable MS Windows Helper Applications
Couple that with by default requesting the user to insert a blank DVDR or USB stick to create a restore "disk" as the final step in setting up the operating system.
This would help resolve their ongoing "bundling" debacle.
I think that, as your children's legal guardian, you're legally responsible for his actions, and, therefore, also responsible for that EULA.
But the law doesn't generally deal with "responsibility" so much as it does with criminal guilt or civil liability. If your child commits an illegal act that is a crime, generally you are NOT held responsible in the sense that you will not be sent to jail. However, the victim might still attempt to hold you responsible, that is, liable by filing a civil lawsuit.
In the case of a breach of contract such as failing to live up to the terms of a EULA, the situation is hairier still because in most jurisdictions a child can't be bound to a contract to begin with. So plaintiff would claim something like unjust enrichment or conversion. The difficulty being that if the item was paid for, in what way can they claim to be harmed?
Sure, in the simplest instance, it looks like a straightforward sham. But what if a third party purchases the software as a gift for your child? Are you somehow bound by your kid's clicking of the EULA? That doesn't seem reasonable. And what if there comes a time when your kid no longer wants the software and gives it to you?
The underlying question being, of course, is it possible to construct a chain of actors by which the end user is legitimately not bound by the EULA regardless of the legality of EULAs in principle?
the Phantom OS sounds more like the Phantom game console than anything I'd want to run on my computer.
Even if you wouldn't want to use it as a production system, it's possible that he may work on some ideas that would be fruitful folded back into Linux or Windows.
For example, since I've been using Firefox (or, if daring, tabbed IE) it irks me that FF can to some extent carry a persistent state between sessions but few other Windows programs can do so. Yes, hibernate works pretty well now in mature operating systems but I want the ability to hibernate apps on an individual basis. This should be built into the OS -- Firefox shouldn't have to roll its own persistent save mechanism. I want to be able to shut down Notepad and restart exactly where I left off without having to explicitly save or reopen a document. Or to close an mp3 on WMP and have it (optionally) pick up when I reopen the program. Or VLC, or whatever. And for any Windows/Linux program to be able to do this by default because the OS takes care of the plumbing.
Absolutely correct, AC. The reason that subprime loans became a problem in the first place was because they were offered with the absurd expectation that housing values could not drop a significant amount. And $trillions in derivatives were sold with that same ridiculous expectation in mind. The domino effect of falling home prices on the market was not fully explored in the models, or not taken seriously. Subprime mortgages were like warped columns on the 110th floor in the WTC South Tower collapsing and "causing" the rest of the building to fail. You can conceivably argue that the columns were defective for not being strong enough to withstand the heat of a burning fuel-laden 747. But blaming the disaster on the columns would be silly.
I would imagine he meant "anonymous" in the colloquial sense of "a random individual." Until his relationship to the company was uncovered, Swami Kumaresan was unknown to me and to the average person -- the name might as well be Sqzqz Kzxzxzxzx.
Kumaresan was specifically relying on being "anonymous" to the world-at-large to get away with his scam.
Not that I disagree with your underlying point, but MS Office Home and Student is only $75 on Newegg, and marginally more expensive elsewhere. And it runs with "silver" compatibility on Wine (word processing OK but equations don't work, not an issue for a 6th grade paper.)
You should be upmodded for that. It's a pithy and insightful skewering of my over-confident initial reply.
So, how to save face? To begin with, since you're the Bloke down the pub, and you misspelled pedophile as paedophile:), I'll assume you're posting from the UK. In which case, it's interesting to note that English law tends to be much more favorable to the plaintiff for defamation cases than is the law in most US jurisdictions, exactly for the reason implied in your comment. How the hell am I expected to prove that I am not a paedophile? In the USA (e.g. San Francisco, where this article takes place), so-called "freedom of speech" trumps defamation, and there is more of a burden put on the plaintiff to substantiate the untruth of the statement. The difference is so extreme that in instances where the case could be conceivably brought on either side of the pond, like our own little matter, plaintiffs generally seek out the English courts. So, I'll be seeing you.;)
I'd admit that my original statement was misleading to the point of being flat-out unhelpful. The burden of proof in tort cases (in the US, anyways) is generally the preponderance of the evidence (sometimes called 51%). Basically, it boils down to, which one of us is more convincing to the judge or jury? However, in this particular instance, even if I prevailed on the merits, what are my damages? I could win and it would still be a big waste of time, although I would get a chance to tour the famed English countryside.
In this case the lion's share of the "bad publicity" arises because he is bringing this case to court. Otherwise would any of us have even heard of this chiropractor?
In any case, the GP is not asserting that free speech is unfettered. What he seems to be saying is that suppressing freedom of speech should only be done in narrow circumstances. Bad publicity of itself is certainly not a cause to suppress free speech. If it were, then you could never read a bad book or movie review either, papers would be forbidden from publishing the names of alleged criminals, and so on.
And as a matter of law, the burden of proof is on the other side to begin with. It's not for the defendant to dig up proof that he was telling the truth. It's for the plaintiff to prove the defendant was making false statements.
What's with the negative vibes? The point of the link wasn't to show that oil companies are fighting global warming. The point was to show that they're acknowledging it. In other words, it's moved far past the point where it can be written off as the mere rantings of "superstitious environmentalists."
The bar-hopping scenario isn't the issue. A portable AIDS is almost irrelevant in a bar setting -- a person would be foolish to have unprotected sex with a stranger anyway, AIDS being only one possible issue.
A different issue would be employers who make their prospective hires or current employees take such a test, 1 out of 100 people (possibly falsely) terminated, slandered, lives turned upside down. Or an insanely jealous boyfriend who runs the test on himself after suspecting his girlfriend of cheating. Leading to a 1/100 chance of a false positive and thoughts of murder. Or how about the AIDS infected girlfriend who shows her guillible boyfriend repeated negative results by using someone else's blood, leading him into a false sense of security.
Forget about illegality. I don't think such a product would last long in the litigious United States even if it were legal.
Others have already mentioned George R.R. Martin's series being developed but let's not forget that Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is already on broadcast television as Legend of the Seeker, which takes place in a fantasy land that bears a strong resemblance to New Zealand.
This is being done by the Herc/Xena guys, btw, so if you tune in expect top quality.;)
You're certainly entitled to hate the unwashed masses if you wish but please don't attempt to rationalize your philosophy with pseudoscience. There's no factual basis to assume that modern-day "welfare" programs have had any major effect on the evolution of the human genome. In fact the statistics bear out that today's welfare recipients in general have far fewer children than did our own non-welfare-receiving forbears, and far fewer children than the poor currently have in countries where welfare does not exist.
If anything, a more supportable thesis would be that, historically, people have had lots of children as a form of social security, and that the growth of the modern welfare state has made people, for the first time, comfortable with the idea of growing old childless. The exact opposite of what you are supposing.
No, it's more than just EXIF/SMS data... the second link mentions using a stylus to scribble something in one's own handwriting.
My own feeling is there is enough here which is non-obvious to easily be patented, if it turns out it hasn't been done before.
Other options are:
It has been done before, in which case someone can come up with prior art, the end. It hasn't been done before, because it's too stupid. In which case, no harm no foul if it's patented.
Finally, I'd like to point out as others have done in previous threads, that the history of patents is replete with things that we as non-inventors assume to be "trivial" or "obvious" but really aren't, in terms of the USPTO. Look up the history of barbed wire and paper clips.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it interesting that the "Blame the Bailouts on Mr. Rogers?" author cites as Exhibit A of our "culture of narcissism" the nigh-legendary Mexican immigrant fruit picker who spoke no English and got a huge home loan. I repeat. MEXICAN. SPOKE NO ENGLISH.
Is it too much to expect the writer's own strawberry, er, cherry-picked references to support her basic thesis?
Thanks. I realize the rationale but I still think there must be a better way to implement it. Basically I hate modal dialog boxes with a passion. :)
One of the problems with UAC (in Vista) is the way it shuts your system down cold. If you're running a video or playing a game, and another program triggers the UAC, then your game or video will stop until you deal with the UAC. That's annoying. Just block the install until I get around to it, don't block everything and force me to cater to the computer's needs. The other thing is that a program should have a way of identifying itself to Windows as an install. And you should be able to "allow" the entire install at one go, not get annoyed for each .exe that gets called up during the process.
There's one other important thing (at least in the US): lack of wireless access.
Back in the 70's and 80's luggable battery operated TV sets were somewhat popular. You could use them in on the porch, on the boat, at the game, even in the car. For a while Casio was making them smaller and cooler, eventually AA battery operated with LCD screens. But then, something happened, which as usual with our country, involved short-sighted greed. More and more people started getting cable TV, the exact kind of heavy watchers who would be more likely to buy a portable TV device. BUT, and this is where greed came into play, there was no way to access your cable channels with the portable TVs, and as cable and satellite became more and more powerful, the little TV sets became less and less useful. Instead of being used on trains, buses, and everywhere radios and mp3 players were used, they were stuck in their same little niches, the boat, the ballgame, etc. And eventually, professional sports made lucrative deals with pay cable and that further diminished portable TV's usefulness. And now, of course, the few remaining portable sets will be rendered useless by the digital switchover. (Meanwhile in Asia, digital broadcasts capable of portable reception are ubiquitous).
So, instead, people who wanted to watch TV wirelessly had to pay for the overpriced sports packs on their tiny cellphone screens. But since cellphones are just another little kind of computer, TV found itself flanked on that side as well. Basically, vanilla broadcast TV and cable are just running out of environments where they are more convenient than IP.
Fair enough, but when I said it would make more sense, I didn't mean from the end user perspective, but from the perspective of Microsoft Corp. and its torturous efforts to avoid the perils of Scylla and Charybdis, er, the Dept of Justice and the European Commission.
In Windows, certain programs are by default associated with particular file types. For example, by default mp3s are associated with WMP. This turnoff switch will likely do more than simply remove the shortcut, it will also remove the default associations.
Subsequently, if you want to actually reclaim the one-half of one percent of your hard drive being taken up by the unneeded applications, you can just go ahead and delete the files manually. Frankly, I don't think it's worth it, since other programs (even third party apps) may be expecting certain files to be present by default in Windows installations, and once you delete the file, you'll have to go fishing for your installation disk in order to restore the functionality. Except increasingly OEM computers DON'T COME WITH INSTALLATION DISKS, and if you forgot to make a restore disk, you'll be very sad.
But I partially agree with some of the comments here: It would make more sense (IMO) for Windows to greet you with the following choice upon initial configuration:
1) Enable All Default MS Windows Helper Applications
2) Do not install Default MS Windows Helper Applications. Just install the basic MS Windows operating system. (note, may affect some functionality of 3rd party applications)
3) Expert: Selectively install/enable/uninstall/disable MS Windows Helper Applications
Couple that with by default requesting the user to insert a blank DVDR or USB stick to create a restore "disk" as the final step in setting up the operating system.
This would help resolve their ongoing "bundling" debacle.
I think that, as your children's legal guardian, you're legally responsible for his actions, and, therefore, also responsible for that EULA.
But the law doesn't generally deal with "responsibility" so much as it does with criminal guilt or civil liability. If your child commits an illegal act that is a crime, generally you are NOT held responsible in the sense that you will not be sent to jail. However, the victim might still attempt to hold you responsible, that is, liable by filing a civil lawsuit.
In the case of a breach of contract such as failing to live up to the terms of a EULA, the situation is hairier still because in most jurisdictions a child can't be bound to a contract to begin with. So plaintiff would claim something like unjust enrichment or conversion. The difficulty being that if the item was paid for, in what way can they claim to be harmed?
Sure, in the simplest instance, it looks like a straightforward sham. But what if a third party purchases the software as a gift for your child? Are you somehow bound by your kid's clicking of the EULA? That doesn't seem reasonable. And what if there comes a time when your kid no longer wants the software and gives it to you?
The underlying question being, of course, is it possible to construct a chain of actors by which the end user is legitimately not bound by the EULA regardless of the legality of EULAs in principle?
Even if you wouldn't want to use it as a production system, it's possible that he may work on some ideas that would be fruitful folded back into Linux or Windows.
For example, since I've been using Firefox (or, if daring, tabbed IE) it irks me that FF can to some extent carry a persistent state between sessions but few other Windows programs can do so. Yes, hibernate works pretty well now in mature operating systems but I want the ability to hibernate apps on an individual basis. This should be built into the OS -- Firefox shouldn't have to roll its own persistent save mechanism. I want to be able to shut down Notepad and restart exactly where I left off without having to explicitly save or reopen a document. Or to close an mp3 on WMP and have it (optionally) pick up when I reopen the program. Or VLC, or whatever. And for any Windows/Linux program to be able to do this by default because the OS takes care of the plumbing.
Absolutely correct, AC. The reason that subprime loans became a problem in the first place was because they were offered with the absurd expectation that housing values could not drop a significant amount. And $trillions in derivatives were sold with that same ridiculous expectation in mind. The domino effect of falling home prices on the market was not fully explored in the models, or not taken seriously. Subprime mortgages were like warped columns on the 110th floor in the WTC South Tower collapsing and "causing" the rest of the building to fail. You can conceivably argue that the columns were defective for not being strong enough to withstand the heat of a burning fuel-laden 747. But blaming the disaster on the columns would be silly.
I would imagine he meant "anonymous" in the colloquial sense of "a random individual." Until his relationship to the company was uncovered, Swami Kumaresan was unknown to me and to the average person -- the name might as well be Sqzqz Kzxzxzxzx.
Kumaresan was specifically relying on being "anonymous" to the world-at-large to get away with his scam.
Not that I disagree with your underlying point, but MS Office Home and Student is only $75 on Newegg, and marginally more expensive elsewhere. And it runs with "silver" compatibility on Wine (word processing OK but equations don't work, not an issue for a 6th grade paper.)
You should be upmodded for that. It's a pithy and insightful skewering of my over-confident initial reply.
So, how to save face? To begin with, since you're the Bloke down the pub, and you misspelled pedophile as paedophile :), I'll assume you're posting from the UK. In which case, it's interesting to note that English law tends to be much more favorable to the plaintiff for defamation cases than is the law in most US jurisdictions, exactly for the reason implied in your comment. How the hell am I expected to prove that I am not a paedophile? In the USA (e.g. San Francisco, where this article takes place), so-called "freedom of speech" trumps defamation, and there is more of a burden put on the plaintiff to substantiate the untruth of the statement. The difference is so extreme that in instances where the case could be conceivably brought on either side of the pond, like our own little matter, plaintiffs generally seek out the English courts. So, I'll be seeing you. ;)
I'd admit that my original statement was misleading to the point of being flat-out unhelpful. The burden of proof in tort cases (in the US, anyways) is generally the preponderance of the evidence (sometimes called 51%). Basically, it boils down to, which one of us is more convincing to the judge or jury? However, in this particular instance, even if I prevailed on the merits, what are my damages? I could win and it would still be a big waste of time, although I would get a chance to tour the famed English countryside.
In this case the lion's share of the "bad publicity" arises because he is bringing this case to court. Otherwise would any of us have even heard of this chiropractor?
In any case, the GP is not asserting that free speech is unfettered. What he seems to be saying is that suppressing freedom of speech should only be done in narrow circumstances. Bad publicity of itself is certainly not a cause to suppress free speech. If it were, then you could never read a bad book or movie review either, papers would be forbidden from publishing the names of alleged criminals, and so on.
And as a matter of law, the burden of proof is on the other side to begin with. It's not for the defendant to dig up proof that he was telling the truth. It's for the plaintiff to prove the defendant was making false statements.
What's with the negative vibes? The point of the link wasn't to show that oil companies are fighting global warming. The point was to show that they're acknowledging it. In other words, it's moved far past the point where it can be written off as the mere rantings of "superstitious environmentalists."
The bar-hopping scenario isn't the issue. A portable AIDS is almost irrelevant in a bar setting -- a person would be foolish to have unprotected sex with a stranger anyway, AIDS being only one possible issue.
A different issue would be employers who make their prospective hires or current employees take such a test, 1 out of 100 people (possibly falsely) terminated, slandered, lives turned upside down. Or an insanely jealous boyfriend who runs the test on himself after suspecting his girlfriend of cheating. Leading to a 1/100 chance of a false positive and thoughts of murder. Or how about the AIDS infected girlfriend who shows her guillible boyfriend repeated negative results by using someone else's blood, leading him into a false sense of security.
Forget about illegality. I don't think such a product would last long in the litigious United States even if it were legal.
Others have already mentioned George R.R. Martin's series being developed but let's not forget that Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is already on broadcast television as Legend of the Seeker, which takes place in a fantasy land that bears a strong resemblance to New Zealand.
This is being done by the Herc/Xena guys, btw, so if you tune in expect top quality. ;)
If still confused, refer to YouTube (about 7 seconds into the clip, or 25 seconds if you prefer a woman's voice).
the UK's run by Parliament, not by the Queen.
You're certainly entitled to hate the unwashed masses if you wish but please don't attempt to rationalize your philosophy with pseudoscience. There's no factual basis to assume that modern-day "welfare" programs have had any major effect on the evolution of the human genome. In fact the statistics bear out that today's welfare recipients in general have far fewer children than did our own non-welfare-receiving forbears, and far fewer children than the poor currently have in countries where welfare does not exist.
If anything, a more supportable thesis would be that, historically, people have had lots of children as a form of social security, and that the growth of the modern welfare state has made people, for the first time, comfortable with the idea of growing old childless. The exact opposite of what you are supposing.
You know what else allows full movie downloads for free?
THE INTERNET.
Since, if deleted, the Deletionpedia article on Wikipedia will be archived on Deletionpedia....
True but in addition many arbitration clauses also allow the aggrieved party to present its claim in the local Small Claims court if desired.
No, it's more than just EXIF/SMS data ... the second link mentions using a stylus to scribble something in one's own handwriting.
My own feeling is there is enough here which is non-obvious to easily be patented, if it turns out it hasn't been done before.
Other options are:
It has been done before, in which case someone can come up with prior art, the end.
It hasn't been done before, because it's too stupid. In which case, no harm no foul if it's patented.
Finally, I'd like to point out as others have done in previous threads, that the history of patents is replete with things that we as non-inventors assume to be "trivial" or "obvious" but really aren't, in terms of the USPTO. Look up the history of barbed wire and paper clips.
I think you're underestimating the size of the typical slashdot porn collection by a couple of orders of magnitude.