I've seen several comments wondering why a person who knows they have a pirated copy do this. This isn't for the "casual pirate". This is for people who saw a deal on the Web and got XP Pro for $50 and installed it. They'll "phone in" and Microsoft will tell them their copy is pirated, then ask where they got it. Voila! Pirate shop busted. That is what this is all about.
...people have stolen so much of Microsoft, and other company's. software that it has come down to this. And whether or not you think the current IP laws are just the fact remains that it is the law and if you are running software that you haven't paid what the author is requesting then you have stolen it.
I'm not worried about my copy of XP being "pirated" since I got it at the Microsoft company store, but to see Joe User taken in by this invasive policy from yet another megacorp who thinks they have some right to a chunck of my paycheck they haven't earned just makes my hackles rise.
I've been a Gnome and Enlightenment fan for a while, but I hear that KDE is ready for prime time. Guess I'll take a look at it. I sure hope Linux for the desktop can start making some inroads into Microsoft's market share so Joe User can keep his current hardware and have a choice in OS, rather than wait for his next big purchase to go get a Mac.
The problem here is that every game console I know of is sold below what it costs to manufacture it. GameStop makes $5.00 on selling a new Xbox, and they only make that much because I'm sure they wouldn't sell them if they made any less. The manufacturer (MS, Sony, Nintendo, et. al) loses money on the platform expecting to make it back on the software (i.e. games) and peripherals.
Knowning this, I always buy the extended warranty. Or at least I did until recently. Now I buy repair guides and just plan to fix the thing myself if it goes out and I want to keep it.
Ahh, the same old unsubstantiated drivel. And my reply.
Re:Americans talk about freedom
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
Here's LiveJournal entry from Google's cache that prompted the Secret Service visit. Be advised that there is profanity in the quoted text, and please accept my appologies in advance if this offends you. Also note that the text quoted below is quite a way down the page and that Google did not render it nicely. Do a Find on "please kill" and it will take you right to the entry under discussion.
Quoted from the post in question:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much. I think he is a giant dick and I want terrible things to happen to him. I'm not really big on the specifics of how he dies, but if you could at least arrange it so that the authorities find his dead body on top of an underage black male prostitute surrounded by a mountain of cocaine and child pornography, that would really be super-awesome. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff. That'd be fucking GREAT.
As has been discussed at length elsewhere, the Secret Service responds to every potential threat to the President, regardless of who holds the office at that time. Also note that this "report" is completely unsubstantiated. Thank you for your reality check.
What I wrote is a direct quote, follow the link and search on any part of the text I quoted. In most browsers you can accomplish this using the keystroke ctrl+f.
Re:Free Speech in the US
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
by stephenbooth (172227) on 9:35 28th October, 2004
Point # 1: They did not threaten the President, or even you. They had to take the original entry, that caused the trouble, down so you can't see how innocuous it was, or maybe you wouldn't.
Here's the post from google's cache that prompted the secret service-- get it while it's still hot.
From the post:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much. I think he is a giant dick and I want terrible things to happen to him. I'm not really big on the specifics of how he dies, but if you could at least arrange it so that the authorities find his dead body on top of an underage black male prostitute surrounded by a mountain of cocaine and child pornography, that would really be super-awesome. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff. That'd be fucking GREAT.
You were saying?
Re:Free Speech in the US
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
Point #1
No, they didn't have to take the entry down, they chose to. As far as I'm concerned your political convictions don't mean much if you can't take some persecution for them. And they must not be very strong if you cave in so quickly.
Point #2
I stand corrected, technically it's not hearsay. Nevertheless it is still unsubstantiated, unless of course you suffer from the "I read it on the Web, it must be true!" syndrome. I can point you to some really interesting pages if that's the case.
Point #3
Glad to know that lack of unreasoning hatred for another human being is a good reason to get modded as a Troll on Slashdot.
Re:Free Speech in the US
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 1
Point #1
Yes, if your comments threaten voilence to the President that is a crime. For that matter, if your comments threaten violence to me it's a crime. It's called assault. This difference between me and the President is that people take his security seriously.
Point #2
All I see in the link provided is hearsay. Show me something more substantial than someone's blog. FWIW I heard the same trash about President Clinton, some guy made a rude comment in person and the Secret Service allegedly came to his door in the middle of the night. That too is hearsay, and I give it the same credence.
Point #3
Speaking of attempted censorship, I notice my original post has been modded as a Troll. Is it just me or does anyone else see the irony? All I'm doing is asking a question that implies that GWBush might not be a total facist and someone feels the need to "punish" me. It's actually pretty funny, even moreso because whoever did it probably think it makes a difference.
Re:Free Speech in Denmark??
on
Press freedom
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Reference please? Or is this just more Bushwacking in a weak disguise?
(Disclaimer: I am a US citizen who is not in favor of numerous actions of the current US President, so spare me your tirades and personal epithets. I am interested in substance, not propaganda. See sig for further political views.)
...will Virizon charge to deliver this to my premises?
Re:That's exactly what Balmer wants!
on
How Cheap Can A PC Be?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Note that the Xbox 2 is going to be built around a PPC chip and no hard drive. Is there a version of Windows for PPC? I don't believe so, but I could be mistaken.
I just read the Wikipedia article on Astrology and I am absolutely stunned. While the article was certainly informative about the beliefs of astrologers and about variations in the art of astrology I can not believe that someone hasn't hasn't performed a simple test of taking a dozen or so "respected" astrologers and 500 people. Have each astrologer draw up a chart regarding some aspect or prediction for each of the 500 and then, without letting the chartee see the chart, make two copies and seal it into two envelopes. Mark one envelope with a date and the other with the name of the chartee. Open the dated envelopes on that date. Open the named envelopes when the astrologer says to or when the named person dies. Measure your accuracy against the specificity of the predictions and the odds of them happening, all have statistical methods of determining certainty. Make the success rate of the predictions known, end of story.
Mind you I don't believe in astrology but I'll certainly say there's more going on in this universe than we currently understand. But to call it an Art and work from 2000 year old data is just.... well it boggles the mind how any rational could give credence to this with no proof.
Which brings me back to the original point. Wikipedia is good for obscure, non-controversial information. Don't try to look up anything about current US politics or controversial historical information.
Really? And I'm supposed to believe an Anonymous Troll for what reason? Especially when Bungie has been saying for years that Halo 2 is the end of the series....
Who to believe, hmm let me think about this for a second.
While I'm about half certain this is a troll I'll respond as if it weren't.
Three things are required for anything complex to be usable. First, the user has to be intellectually capable of comprehending how to use it. Second, the device has to able to accomplish the task it's designed for. Third, the user has to know how to use it.
The third item is where adequate documentation comes in.
The problem is that the information contradicting the popular belief is the correct info, just as it was with Galileo. And just as it was with Galileo's peers, the Wikipedia authors have no desire to change their cherished misconceptions.
I can't agree more on the Windows Help docs. Whenever I print a test page and the dialog asks "Did it print?" I click "Yes" before I even bother to check the printer.
The problem here is that Windows has no incentive to make better docs, they hold the lion's share of the market. For Open Source to change that they have to give the market a reason to want to change. I have found that most Linux man pages are hopelessly obfuscated, whether deliberately or just because they were writen by the programmer (see my original post) is irrelevent. At the risk of repeating myself, this has got to change if there is going to be widespread acceptance of Open Source.
I saw a cartoon a while back where a group was touring Microsoft and they stop in front of a room labled "Error message encoding" or some such. Their guide says "Must be a mistake in the plaque" and they move on. Last panel shows two guys passing a joint, one of them saying something like "Register Corruption: A15F2E" or something equally obscure, and the other guy laughing and saying "Oh man, that's great! They'll never get that one!"
I wish I could find that cartoon online, I'd have posted a link. But I think you get the point.
Having attempted to edit several controversial articles on Wikipedia over the course of about a year, I have to say that I find Marafa's viewpoint much more in line with my own experience. My 20 years of research into certain areas, and careful verification of various historical facts, mean nothing compared to the "popular opinion" on controversial articles. I would have to say that I have found more revisionist history on Wikipedia than anywhere else, and more would-be authors who wouldn't recognize a fact if it came up and barked at them if said fact was contrary to their pre-existing beliefs.
Having said that, Wikipedia is an excellent resource for non-controversial information and cultural tidbits that are outside a one's personal experience. In fact in these areas it frequently gives far more information than a paper encyclopedia. I have not compared it to "professional" on-line encyclopedia but I suspect that it would come out on top of that comparison as well.
For the same reason that it was impractical to keep MIR in orbit. On any complex system things start to break down after a time. The more systems there are the more likely they are to break at once. In any situation where human life depends on the integrety of the entire device failure of any critical system is unacceptable. You can get a second opinion from any scuba or sky diver that happens to post in here if you want to, but I rather suspect they'll agree with me.
The biggest weakness of OpenSource in general is the documentation. And while no one can argue that you can get more in depth documentation from the author of the software, most of that documentation is difficult to read at best, and so totally obscure that it would be easier to just read the source and figure out the app at worst. When the programmers write the docs they tend to take too much for granted. They'll tell you about the leaves on the trees and the patterns on the bark, but neglect to tell you what type of tree they're telling you about, so to speak. This is why most companies have a different team writing the docs than wrote the application.
Having said that, I'm very glad to see someone addressing the need for documentation on OpenSource software. If Joe User can grab a manual (even a virtual one) and read up on how to use (for example) Open Office he's far more likely to try to use it if the latest commercial offering is out of his budget. And if some members of Management happen to try reading some decent documentation on a given package they might be persuaded to run a "test copy" at work as well. This shortcoming (the lack of good docs) has probably been one of the larger stumbling blocks to the widespread adaptation of Open Source software by business, and this is a novel way to get some people to work on this area for free.
It seems to me that you have not read Art of War, or if you read it you failed to understaned it. Ho Chi Mihn played the US like a fiddle in Viet Nam, sapping our national will to fight. (I am not saying we should have been there, I am saying that once we were there we should have done what we came to do quickly and decisively, then bring our troops home.)
I also recommend that you spend some time with On War by Carl von Clausewitz. Despite the fact that this work is approaching 200 years old it remains one of the definitive works on the subject.
Now, when we are already at war, it's too late to whine and whimper. You may not agree with us being there, or think we should be there but for different reasons than we are. None of that matters now. What matters is that we are there and at war. It's time to deal with reality and get the job done that we went over there to do. It's time to put this partisan whining aside and finish what has been started. We can deal with "should have" and "would have" after our service men and women are no longer at risk.
As Kosh put it in Babylon 5, "When the avalanche has started it is too late for the pebbles to vote".
Seriously tho, I was wondering why someone hadn't done a robot based on a Segway yet since it seemed so obvious. Glad to see MIT's not gone totaly stale yet.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen several comments wondering why a person who knows they have a pirated copy do this. This isn't for the "casual pirate". This is for people who saw a deal on the Web and got XP Pro for $50 and installed it. They'll "phone in" and Microsoft will tell them their copy is pirated, then ask where they got it. Voila! Pirate shop busted. That is what this is all about.
I'm not worried about my copy of XP being "pirated" since I got it at the Microsoft company store, but to see Joe User taken in by this invasive policy from yet another megacorp who thinks they have some right to a chunck of my paycheck they haven't earned just makes my hackles rise.
I've been a Gnome and Enlightenment fan for a while, but I hear that KDE is ready for prime time. Guess I'll take a look at it. I sure hope Linux for the desktop can start making some inroads into Microsoft's market share so Joe User can keep his current hardware and have a choice in OS, rather than wait for his next big purchase to go get a Mac.
Knowning this, I always buy the extended warranty. Or at least I did until recently. Now I buy repair guides and just plan to fix the thing myself if it goes out and I want to keep it.
Howabout because I prefer my charities to have compassion greater than that of the IRS and USPS? Charity belongs in the private sector.
Ahh, the same old unsubstantiated drivel. And my reply.
Quoted from the post in question:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much. I think he is a giant dick and I want terrible things to happen to him. I'm not really big on the specifics of how he dies, but if you could at least arrange it so that the authorities find his dead body on top of an underage black male prostitute surrounded by a mountain of cocaine and child pornography, that would really be super-awesome. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff. That'd be fucking GREAT.
As has been discussed at length elsewhere, the Secret Service responds to every potential threat to the President, regardless of who holds the office at that time. Also note that this "report" is completely unsubstantiated. Thank you for your reality check.Then perhaps you should use the search function before you call someone a liar. Do a find on "please kill", it will take you right to it.
What I wrote is a direct quote, follow the link and search on any part of the text I quoted. In most browsers you can accomplish this using the keystroke ctrl+f.
Here's the post from google's cache that prompted the secret service-- get it while it's still hot.
From the post:
Please kill George Bush. I hate him so much. I think he is a giant dick and I want terrible things to happen to him. I'm not really big on the specifics of how he dies, but if you could at least arrange it so that the authorities find his dead body on top of an underage black male prostitute surrounded by a mountain of cocaine and child pornography, that would really be super-awesome. And maybe you could have some media people there when the police find the body, so they can take pictures and stuff. That'd be fucking GREAT.
You were saying?
No, they didn't have to take the entry down, they chose to. As far as I'm concerned your political convictions don't mean much if you can't take some persecution for them. And they must not be very strong if you cave in so quickly.
Point #2
I stand corrected, technically it's not hearsay. Nevertheless it is still unsubstantiated, unless of course you suffer from the "I read it on the Web, it must be true!" syndrome. I can point you to some really interesting pages if that's the case.
Point #3
Glad to know that lack of unreasoning hatred for another human being is a good reason to get modded as a Troll on Slashdot.
Yes, if your comments threaten voilence to the President that is a crime. For that matter, if your comments threaten violence to me it's a crime. It's called assault. This difference between me and the President is that people take his security seriously.
Point #2
All I see in the link provided is hearsay. Show me something more substantial than someone's blog. FWIW I heard the same trash about President Clinton, some guy made a rude comment in person and the Secret Service allegedly came to his door in the middle of the night. That too is hearsay, and I give it the same credence.
Point #3
Speaking of attempted censorship, I notice my original post has been modded as a Troll. Is it just me or does anyone else see the irony? All I'm doing is asking a question that implies that GWBush might not be a total facist and someone feels the need to "punish" me. It's actually pretty funny, even moreso because whoever did it probably think it makes a difference.
(Disclaimer: I am a US citizen who is not in favor of numerous actions of the current US President, so spare me your tirades and personal epithets. I am interested in substance, not propaganda. See sig for further political views.)
...will Virizon charge to deliver this to my premises?
Note that the Xbox 2 is going to be built around a PPC chip and no hard drive. Is there a version of Windows for PPC? I don't believe so, but I could be mistaken.
Mind you I don't believe in astrology but I'll certainly say there's more going on in this universe than we currently understand. But to call it an Art and work from 2000 year old data is just.... well it boggles the mind how any rational could give credence to this with no proof.
Which brings me back to the original point. Wikipedia is good for obscure, non-controversial information. Don't try to look up anything about current US politics or controversial historical information.
Who to believe, hmm let me think about this for a second.
Three things are required for anything complex to be usable. First, the user has to be intellectually capable of comprehending how to use it. Second, the device has to able to accomplish the task it's designed for. Third, the user has to know how to use it.
The third item is where adequate documentation comes in.
The problem is that the information contradicting the popular belief is the correct info, just as it was with Galileo. And just as it was with Galileo's peers, the Wikipedia authors have no desire to change their cherished misconceptions.
The problem here is that Windows has no incentive to make better docs, they hold the lion's share of the market. For Open Source to change that they have to give the market a reason to want to change. I have found that most Linux man pages are hopelessly obfuscated, whether deliberately or just because they were writen by the programmer (see my original post) is irrelevent. At the risk of repeating myself, this has got to change if there is going to be widespread acceptance of Open Source.
I saw a cartoon a while back where a group was touring Microsoft and they stop in front of a room labled "Error message encoding" or some such. Their guide says "Must be a mistake in the plaque" and they move on. Last panel shows two guys passing a joint, one of them saying something like "Register Corruption: A15F2E" or something equally obscure, and the other guy laughing and saying "Oh man, that's great! They'll never get that one!"
I wish I could find that cartoon online, I'd have posted a link. But I think you get the point.
Having said that, Wikipedia is an excellent resource for non-controversial information and cultural tidbits that are outside a one's personal experience. In fact in these areas it frequently gives far more information than a paper encyclopedia. I have not compared it to "professional" on-line encyclopedia but I suspect that it would come out on top of that comparison as well.
For the same reason that it was impractical to keep MIR in orbit. On any complex system things start to break down after a time. The more systems there are the more likely they are to break at once. In any situation where human life depends on the integrety of the entire device failure of any critical system is unacceptable. You can get a second opinion from any scuba or sky diver that happens to post in here if you want to, but I rather suspect they'll agree with me.
Having said that, I'm very glad to see someone addressing the need for documentation on OpenSource software. If Joe User can grab a manual (even a virtual one) and read up on how to use (for example) Open Office he's far more likely to try to use it if the latest commercial offering is out of his budget. And if some members of Management happen to try reading some decent documentation on a given package they might be persuaded to run a "test copy" at work as well. This shortcoming (the lack of good docs) has probably been one of the larger stumbling blocks to the widespread adaptation of Open Source software by business, and this is a novel way to get some people to work on this area for free.
You can't use rat brains for Linux, you have to use penguin brains.
I also recommend that you spend some time with On War by Carl von Clausewitz. Despite the fact that this work is approaching 200 years old it remains one of the definitive works on the subject.
Now, when we are already at war, it's too late to whine and whimper. You may not agree with us being there, or think we should be there but for different reasons than we are. None of that matters now. What matters is that we are there and at war. It's time to deal with reality and get the job done that we went over there to do. It's time to put this partisan whining aside and finish what has been started. We can deal with "should have" and "would have" after our service men and women are no longer at risk.
As Kosh put it in Babylon 5, "When the avalanche has started it is too late for the pebbles to vote".
Seriously tho, I was wondering why someone hadn't done a robot based on a Segway yet since it seemed so obvious. Glad to see MIT's not gone totaly stale yet.