WinXP is still a sitting duck out of the box. You can't patch it until you connect to the internet, unless you've managed to download service packs and critical updates and burn them to CD, which most "normal" people won't think to do. Unless they have a good firewall between them and the rest of the internet, that unpatched XP system will be toast before you can say "Sasser!"
If Windows and Linux are 'neck and neck' when it comes to security, maybe Linux is riding a giraffe How's Windows security stack up next to OpenBSD?
The performance is certainly copyrightable, and copyrighted. If you actually downloaded and listened to the symphonies, the audio file is prefaced by a BBC announcer stating that the file is available for free download from the BBC, for a limited time, and they request that the files not be redistributed, and a few other terms of the offering.
Either the BBC is the copyright holder, or authorized by the holder, which if it is not the BBC it is likely the Philharmonic Orchestra, to host the digital files of that performance on their web server and offer them to the public for free download.
It's perfectly within a copyright holder's rights to give away their own copyrighted work for free.
Beating up on hippies makes a lot of sense, because mostly they don't know how to fight, and are pacifists. Thus, you are very likely to win, or at least not get hurt if you don't win. So, a business model based on beating up on hippies would seem to be a low-risk proposition.
Fantastic, I just went through all the trouble of skinning Firefox to look exactly like IE, and even changed the desktop icon to look like IE, so that my parents would quit launching IE instead of Firefox like I tell them, and now this book comes out. I just know as soon as my parents see the title while browsing for "helpful" computer books that I might be interested they'll never click on that damn E, and all my effort to stealth-install Firefox for them will have been wasted. I might as well shoot myself now.
I'm not a Verizon customer, so of course I don't have access to their contract, and am speaking hypothetically. I have no idea what the terms of their contract are, but IF they specify no modification of hardware beyond vendor-approved firmware upgrades, then you are bound by that contract, whether the phone is your property or theirs.
If it is yours, you're free to hack it as much as you want, but the moment you enter into a contract with a phone service provider, you will be bound by the contract that you agree to. If you read the contract carefully and find that you are free to used hacked hardware, then great. Otherwise, either don't agree to the contract, or follow the terms.
If enough people don't agree to the contract, they'll be forced to re-write the contract to something more agreeable.
And if the contract states that you won't use Verizon's services with any phone running non-Verizon-authorized firmware, what then?
I have not ripped Verizon off of any cost or services
Unless they had intended to charge you for custom ringtones or something silly like that...
I'm sympathetic that the stuff that they do charge for is often bullshit. But that doesn't mean that you should have the "right" to circumvent what you've contractually obligated yourself to follow.
It's one thing if they really did sell you the device outright, and sold you service on their networks with no stipulations about what you could do to the software running on your phone. If they were forcing customers to do this with no contract, I'd be up in arms over it. Well figuratively anyway; like most Americans I probably still wouldn't give much of a crap.
But if you don't like the terms of the contract, you don't have to accept them. If enough people felt like you, and actually did something about it and refused to do business with companies that offered shitty ToS, and told them so, there'd be a market for products that did not come with shitty ToS strings attached.
Look at Speakeasy as an example of an ISP who respects what geeky customers want, or Google as a web services company that by and large does things right -- this isn't just some idealistic pipedream, it is a reality and can be for more products if we stand up and make ourselves heard, instead of being whores for the lowest-priced goods and services available, without regard to the other intangible costs.
(Psst, Hey Speakeasy! How about getting into the cell phone market? I want to run Linux on my Nokia, and I know you'd let me!)
Any real astrologer knows that the courts are not the proper channel for such disputes. The correct procedure for redress of these complaints is for the astrologer to put a curse on NASA. And then, when NASA begs forgiveness, she can dictate her terms to them.
Why don't people use the established channels the way they were intended to be used anymore???
The libel laws are pretty good - they force people commenting in public, including in a wiki, to back up their claims. Linking criticism to evidence and citations will preempt many merely retaliatory legal actions.
So people can post content to the web and meet the required standards to avoid libel suits.
Now, I don't know why you "predicted" that I'd say that only government oppression is prohibited, permitting corporate oppression.
I didn't mean "you" specifically, but a lot of people seem to think that employer censorship is A-OK, as long as the government isn't censoring you. I'm with you in that I think this corporate neo-feudalism is the greatest threat to our rights today. I wish more people could see that.
Why should a company participate in dialog when it can simply quash all dissent? It shouldn't. But that's the problem. They shouldn't have the option to quash dissent. Thus, removing that option, the best thing for companies to do is enter into dialog.
What a company wants and what is in the public's interest are two different things in many cases, and the law ought to side with the public's interest. Thus, sites where these matters are publicly discussed ought to be protected as free speech.
Libel is a separate matter. I am talking about free citizens freely speaking their minds and calling attention to abuses of employers.
Employers think that they should have the right to control what people think, do, and say even in their private lives or when employees act as public citizens. This is wrong, and harmful to free and open society.
The law presently is blinded into thinking that corporations serve the public good. If enough people gave a damn enough to effect change, this problem might be redressed. The internet is a tool by which social change might be effected. But not if people cannot be shielded from retribution when they freely exercise their rights.
And before you object in the most predictable manner, it's irrelevent whether it's government oppression or corporate oppression. It's still oppression, and a good and free people ought to renounce all such oppression, regardless of its source.
They'll go bankrupt doing that. After few dozen lawsuits, they'll realize this.
At which point, they'll try to legislate employment fairness websites out of existence.
This will cause a crisis of constitutional (free speech) and international law (offshore servers hosting these sites) which will be too large to effectively be resolved in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.
Meanwhile, the sites will remain up and people will be able to use them.
Man, it'd be so easy to bring about some justice if the people weren't all self-interested sheep.
If the site were a wiki site, the companies accused could respond to the allegations, ensuring that if the allegations were outright false, or mistakes were made and later redressed, readers of the site could learn that.
Best possible case if your company innovates on the Windows platform is that they get bought by Microsoft, who will then sit on your product and let it stagnate until someone else invents the same thing, at which point they'll release your old version of it skinned to have a consistent MS look to it, and then they'll rapidly go through about 3 development cycles to get it to the point where it's actually useable again, only it'll be integrated with the OS and Office.
This pretty much explains the lack of innovation in the MSverse.
Also, instead of innovation, they're working on making software stable and secure. They're pretty good on stability now, and in a few more years they may even have security done. At that point, they'll be free to innovate on features and functionality again.
I've been blogging for years and have not found comment spamming to be a significant problem. I've received a handful of spam comments in my blog, and they've all been swiftly deleted and the originator banned from posting again. I filter anonymous posts, so if someone tries to post a comment anonymously, I get to see it and OK it first before it the rest of the world gets to see it. I don't mind anonymous comments at all, assuming they're real responses to what I've posted, but if they're spam I just delete them. And like I said, over the course of several years, I've received only a handful. Maybe like 5 in 15,000.
Slashdot Mirror
If Vin Diesel kicked Chewbacca's ass, Chewie would probably just turn around and rip his arms off.
That's why I always wear my helmet and leather jacket when I read
WinXP is still a sitting duck out of the box. You can't patch it until you connect to the internet, unless you've managed to download service packs and critical updates and burn them to CD, which most "normal" people won't think to do. Unless they have a good firewall between them and the rest of the internet, that unpatched XP system will be toast before you can say "Sasser!"
If Windows and Linux are 'neck and neck' when it comes to security, maybe Linux is riding a giraffe How's Windows security stack up next to OpenBSD?
If Microsoft releases Windows 64-bit edition for PPC, and Lenovo decides that they want to build a G5 laptop...
Yeah, probably not too likely. But it'd still be cool. Especially if someone then hacked it to run OS X.
Article reads like an essay written by a bored high school student for English class. It says nothing new or interesting. Ho hum.
/. articles.
However, it's still notably better in terms of grammar, punctuation, and redundancy than most
The performance is certainly copyrightable, and copyrighted. If you actually downloaded and listened to the symphonies, the audio file is prefaced by a BBC announcer stating that the file is available for free download from the BBC, for a limited time, and they request that the files not be redistributed, and a few other terms of the offering.
Either the BBC is the copyright holder, or authorized by the holder, which if it is not the BBC it is likely the Philharmonic Orchestra, to host the digital files of that performance on their web server and offer them to the public for free download.
It's perfectly within a copyright holder's rights to give away their own copyrighted work for free.
What?
*brain asplodes*
Brain asplosion. n. When you've got your head stuck up your ass, and fart... while lighting a cigarette.
I thought the official name WAS Itanic. I figured they just liked the movie, but were missing the obvious bad omen. Oh well.
Beating up on hippies makes a lot of sense, because mostly they don't know how to fight, and are pacifists. Thus, you are very likely to win, or at least not get hurt if you don't win. So, a business model based on beating up on hippies would seem to be a low-risk proposition.
Or just move to Korea or Japan and get it right now.
Fantastic, I just went through all the trouble of skinning Firefox to look exactly like IE, and even changed the desktop icon to look like IE, so that my parents would quit launching IE instead of Firefox like I tell them, and now this book comes out. I just know as soon as my parents see the title while browsing for "helpful" computer books that I might be interested they'll never click on that damn E, and all my effort to stealth-install Firefox for them will have been wasted. I might as well shoot myself now.
I'm not a Verizon customer, so of course I don't have access to their contract, and am speaking hypothetically. I have no idea what the terms of their contract are, but IF they specify no modification of hardware beyond vendor-approved firmware upgrades, then you are bound by that contract, whether the phone is your property or theirs.
If it is yours, you're free to hack it as much as you want, but the moment you enter into a contract with a phone service provider, you will be bound by the contract that you agree to. If you read the contract carefully and find that you are free to used hacked hardware, then great. Otherwise, either don't agree to the contract, or follow the terms.
If enough people don't agree to the contract, they'll be forced to re-write the contract to something more agreeable.
I purchased it under my contract.
And if the contract states that you won't use Verizon's services with any phone running non-Verizon-authorized firmware, what then?
I have not ripped Verizon off of any cost or services
Unless they had intended to charge you for custom ringtones or something silly like that...
I'm sympathetic that the stuff that they do charge for is often bullshit. But that doesn't mean that you should have the "right" to circumvent what you've contractually obligated yourself to follow.
It's one thing if they really did sell you the device outright, and sold you service on their networks with no stipulations about what you could do to the software running on your phone. If they were forcing customers to do this with no contract, I'd be up in arms over it. Well figuratively anyway; like most Americans I probably still wouldn't give much of a crap.
But if you don't like the terms of the contract, you don't have to accept them. If enough people felt like you, and actually did something about it and refused to do business with companies that offered shitty ToS, and told them so, there'd be a market for products that did not come with shitty ToS strings attached.
Look at Speakeasy as an example of an ISP who respects what geeky customers want, or Google as a web services company that by and large does things right -- this isn't just some idealistic pipedream, it is a reality and can be for more products if we stand up and make ourselves heard, instead of being whores for the lowest-priced goods and services available, without regard to the other intangible costs.
(Psst, Hey Speakeasy! How about getting into the cell phone market? I want to run Linux on my Nokia, and I know you'd let me!)
I hear that Bezos has applied for a patent on the 10-year anniversary.
Any real astrologer knows that the courts are not the proper channel for such disputes. The correct procedure for redress of these complaints is for the astrologer to put a curse on NASA. And then, when NASA begs forgiveness, she can dictate her terms to them.
Why don't people use the established channels the way they were intended to be used anymore???
The libel laws are pretty good - they force people commenting in public, including in a wiki, to back up their claims. Linking criticism to evidence and citations will preempt many merely retaliatory legal actions.
So people can post content to the web and meet the required standards to avoid libel suits.
Now, I don't know why you "predicted" that I'd say that only government oppression is prohibited, permitting corporate oppression.
I didn't mean "you" specifically, but a lot of people seem to think that employer censorship is A-OK, as long as the government isn't censoring you. I'm with you in that I think this corporate neo-feudalism is the greatest threat to our rights today. I wish more people could see that.
Why should a company participate in dialog when it can simply quash all dissent? It shouldn't. But that's the problem. They shouldn't have the option to quash dissent. Thus, removing that option, the best thing for companies to do is enter into dialog.
What a company wants and what is in the public's interest are two different things in many cases, and the law ought to side with the public's interest. Thus, sites where these matters are publicly discussed ought to be protected as free speech.
Libel is a separate matter. I am talking about free citizens freely speaking their minds and calling attention to abuses of employers.
Employers think that they should have the right to control what people think, do, and say even in their private lives or when employees act as public citizens. This is wrong, and harmful to free and open society.
The law presently is blinded into thinking that corporations serve the public good. If enough people gave a damn enough to effect change, this problem might be redressed. The internet is a tool by which social change might be effected. But not if people cannot be shielded from retribution when they freely exercise their rights.
And before you object in the most predictable manner, it's irrelevent whether it's government oppression or corporate oppression. It's still oppression, and a good and free people ought to renounce all such oppression, regardless of its source.
They'll go bankrupt doing that. After few dozen lawsuits, they'll realize this.
At which point, they'll try to legislate employment fairness websites out of existence.
This will cause a crisis of constitutional (free speech) and international law (offshore servers hosting these sites) which will be too large to effectively be resolved in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.
Meanwhile, the sites will remain up and people will be able to use them.
Man, it'd be so easy to bring about some justice if the people weren't all self-interested sheep.
And the threat of publicity should (in theory anyway) prevent employers from doing shitty things to their employees.
Participating in a wiki is optional and voluntary, so if they don't want to defend their reputation, that's their decision.
If the site were a wiki site, the companies accused could respond to the allegations, ensuring that if the allegations were outright false, or mistakes were made and later redressed, readers of the site could learn that.
Best possible case if your company innovates on the Windows platform is that they get bought by Microsoft, who will then sit on your product and let it stagnate until someone else invents the same thing, at which point they'll release your old version of it skinned to have a consistent MS look to it, and then they'll rapidly go through about 3 development cycles to get it to the point where it's actually useable again, only it'll be integrated with the OS and Office.
This pretty much explains the lack of innovation in the MSverse.
Also, instead of innovation, they're working on making software stable and secure. They're pretty good on stability now, and in a few more years they may even have security done. At that point, they'll be free to innovate on features and functionality again.
We'll all be going much more slowly once all the oil runs out. Those of us who haven't starved to death in the ensuing famine and political upheavals.
Bitching about intrusive government limiting the speed of your luxury vehicle will seem utterly petty by around 2015-2020.
And besides, they invent a device called a "governor" and then expect the government NOT to put it on every vehicle? Who couldn't see this coming??
I've been blogging for years and have not found comment spamming to be a significant problem. I've received a handful of spam comments in my blog, and they've all been swiftly deleted and the originator banned from posting again. I filter anonymous posts, so if someone tries to post a comment anonymously, I get to see it and OK it first before it the rest of the world gets to see it. I don't mind anonymous comments at all, assuming they're real responses to what I've posted, but if they're spam I just delete them. And like I said, over the course of several years, I've received only a handful. Maybe like 5 in 15,000.