Hate to say it but after further web searchs I've come to the conclusion that Ernie may be screwed.
There seems to be yet another Neomail, again providing web based e-mail related services. This one apperently released there first version in 1999 which would pre-date both Neomail by Ernie and the Neomail provided by NeoPets
This presents a major problem. Even if Ernie can block Neopets from registering the trademark all of his arguments would hold little-to-no water if the folks at Neomain decided to register it.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news like this. Especialy with the great repect I have for Ernie as a programmer and the love I have for Neomail, but be that as it may it does seem to rightfully belong to Neomain
My recommendation would probably be to just pack it up and go through the trouble of a namechange for the app
And just out of spite send an e-mail on over to Neomain telling them about NeoPets, I'm sure it would at least make for some amusing fireworks as two well funded legal departments got to fighting over it.:)
I paid over $100 for a marketing book and all it has in it is ads (about 3-5 per page) Don't think that ads would lower und-user cost. It'll only add to others profit margin!
ummmm...shouldn't a marketing text book by its very definition be filled with ads (i.e. examples)?
Although I think putting ads in, say, a math text is pretty low. We don't tend to have a problem with that here, at least not at the collage in the city. The UofA probably does. The schools here are pretty well funded by both the government and donations from local corporations (notice the word donation...as in they don't expect anything in return besides the tax write-off it gets them). As for networking, computing resources, etc. the city government came up with there Cybercity (lame name but good idea) initiative quite a few years ago. Every school (k-12, collage, etc.), major public building, and all businesses that are considered important to the cities growth/image to the rest of the world (the newspaper, radio stations, etc.) are all given a free connection directly into the cities fiber backbone for internet connectivity and really have no shortage of funds available for hardware.
However, the way I use victim, and I think is the prevalent usage is not someone who suffers due to their own poor choices (someone who drops out of college is not a victim they are meerly excersising poor judgement) but instead is someone who unfairly has negative consequences inflicted on them by another. In this sense then drug use is indeed victimless.
How about you drive your ass down to your local hospital and explain this "victimless crime" theory to the doctors and nurses looking after the couple of dozen babies born with addictions that are probably laying dieing in pediatrics...
How about you explain it to the families of the hundreds of people per year that get there heads blown off just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when either a deal went bad or some crack head decided he needed some cash to get his next fix...
Victimless crime my ass. I generaly have no problems with people that use drugs, a few of my friends do, but don't sit there lying to yourself that its a victimless crime...I know a hell of a lot of victims that would tend to disagree with you.
It doesn't seem like anyone is being FORCED to warranty their software, just provide an adequate one should they decide to warranty it - which is not what the linked slashdot story implied. Mehr Info Bitte.
From my understanding (which admittedly may be flawed) what this basically amounts to is a set of "lemon laws" for high tech products (hardware, software, etc.).
If this is the case what it tries to enact is a set of base standards that a warranty must abide by. Those companies that don't use a warranty at all leave themselves wide open since they are then subject to the implied warranties created in any transaction with a consumer. Namely fitness for purpose and merchantability (i.e. it does we advertised it'll do)
Traditionally software licence agreements have been used as a vehicle to disclaim any and all warranties, express or implied as opposed to providing information on what warranty is actually available (usually none). What this law hoped to do is remove the companies right to disclaim implied warranties and to force them into a minimum standard for the warranties they do provide.
Inevitably the software industries response to this will be that such laws would make it imposable for them to do business. I can't help but laugh at this since it is the exact same argument used by the auto industry years ago when there own lemon laws were enacted...and they still seem to make a mint while at the same time loosing there ability to screw consumers.
The only gotcha about this proposed law is that we as concerned citizens will have to make it very clear to congress that there must be some kind of exemption for free software. A "good Samaritan" clause if you will. If your getting something for free and your given the right to mess with its internals (whether you have the technical skill to pull it off or not) you should honestly have no right to sue anyone but yourself if it breaks
I think that was quite possibly the most intelligent set of comments/attitudes I have seen from anyone in the open source community in some time.
Thank You
Lately its seemed that a lot of people have been loosing sight of just why they do things. GNU/Linux and the rest of the free *nix family were built on people doing something because they loved it, because it was challenging and fun. In recent time's it has started to degrade into in to a badge, a status symbol for people to wear on there sleeves to say "hey, look, I'm special, I use/develop for Linux.". This is not how it should be. The "community" isn't some elite group, it isn't something that should be distilled down to a business model. Its a family of like minded individuals doing something because they love it.
I think I'd like everyone in the community who has since moved Linux from a hobby to a career to look in the mirror at least once a day and ask themselves, just as the average professional athlete must, "Why do I still play the game? Do I do it for the love or for the money?".
I hope you come up with an answer you can live with...
Well, it depends on how you look at it. The GPL licence can be well summed up in one line:
"You have the right to do anything you want as long as you don't step on anyone elses rights in the process."
When looked at from that perspective the GPL tends to fall under "common sense" and "good and decent conduct". This is mainly set up to keep ubercorporations from taking GPL'd products that were released into the community in good faith by developers who for all intents and purposes were just trying to be good sumeritins and using there hard work to make money without any compensation to the author or the community there stealing from. As a person or a company I can take any piece of GPL'd software I want, modify it to fit my perticular needs at the time and use it free and clear. But if I want to redistribute it I'm forced to "keep it in the family" by keeping it GPL'd. So the only thing that I'm restricted from doing is hurting the author or opensource community by stealing there hard work for my own gains.
ahhh...well...actualy QT generaly refers to the Qt crossplatform C++ GUI toolkit (which is what there talking about in this thread) as opposed to the Apple Quicktime media format.
The issue here isn't them adding non-standard features. As much as it pains me to say it microsoft has just as much right to introduce innovations into the market as any other company.
The main complaint is that there introducing all these shinny new propriatory features and not bothering to implement properly the things that ARE already standards (eg. standards complaint rendering of plain old HTML, CSS1-2, etc.) or are in some cases down right breaking them. Another problem is that most of there "new innovations" can be accomlished (in many cases better and easier) with technologies that are already in the pipeline for introduction as formal standards by w3c (e.g. DOM) so explain to me why they felt it was nessecary to reinvent the wheel (and do a compairativly poor job of it) as opposed to just implementing DOM and other technologies that are up before the standards board?
Its not a case of "if you don't like the new features don't program for them" its "pick a browser to support because your going to have a bitch of a time supporting all of them."
According to the CTO of Counterpane, e-commerce businesses 'don't have to prevent hacking; they have to manage their risks.' Interesting perspective from a security wonk.
Will, actualy its a pretty common perspective from...ummm...security "wonk"s
Any security specialist will tell you that the only secure system is either one that isn't connected to a network of any kind or one that has the power switch in the off possision
Network security is a constent game of risk managment. The more secure you make something, the less funtional and intuitive you make it for your end user. FTP is an inherently unsecure protical, but how many customers would be ready to kill you if you were running say a web host and killed the FTP service? Same goes of services such as telnet. There are secure alternatives, but again, your alianating your customers by forcing them to use something that in there minds at least is non-standard.
So it comes down to seeking a constent balence between the services you need to provide to make a buck and the risk your willing to take onto yourself againt crackers
This is also an attitude that is common among those in e-commerce circles. Companies don't even try to prevent all credit card fraud, the only way to do that would be to not offer credit card payments at all, they just try to keep within the "acceptable limits" of risk that they have set for there company.
You get channels enough to support 4 drives standard on most MB's. A Promis Ultra33, Ultra66, or IDE RAID card will get you channels for another four drives at the cost of 2 IRQ's. Thats about as far as you can go unless you happen to somehow magicly have another 2 IRQ's left for another card in which case you may be able to get away with adding another 4 drives for a total of 12.
I think he either accidently added a 0 (as in 2 75gig drives) or dropped a point (as in a 20.75 gig drive)
The RIAA holds the copyrights on almost all music produced by the record labels under it. If they didn't they wouldn't have the right to sue anybody, only the individual record labels would be able too. For all intents and purposes the RIAA is just a massive price fixing cartel that exists for no other reason then to be a bigass legal department. Sounds anticompetitive to me and is exactly what this law was apperently designed to address.
It is very unlikly that this will effect the ability of artists to hold the copyright of there own works, or even there record companies for that matter. This law specificly targets entities that use there copyrights in an anticompetive manor. i.e. massive cartels like the RIAA and the motion picture association that for all intents and purposes were only formed to provide an inroad for massive price fixing. Its any copyrights that they hold that would be invalidated.
If this is won it is quite likly that this will spill over into any future cases brought again companies such as microsoft, etc. as well
Actualy...no...they don't. To quote the findings of law:
Microsoft has presented no evidence that the contractual (or the technological) restrictions it placed on OEMs' ability to alter Windows derive from any of the enumerated rights explicitly granted to a copyright holder under the Copyright Act. Instead, Microsoft argues that the restrictions "simply restate" an expansive right to preserve the "integrity"of its copyrighted software against any "distortion," "truncation," or "alteration," a right nowhere mentioned among the Copyright Act's list of exclusive rights, 17 U.S.C. 106, thus raising some doubt as to its existence. See Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 155 (1973) (not all uses of a work are within copyright holder's control; rights limited to specifically granted "exclusive rights"); cf. 17 U.S.C. 501(a) (infringement means violating specifically enumerated rights). 2
Please read the relivent case law before going off on a tangent. Then continue reading along this thread for another quote from the Findings of law that specificly states that MS threatend OEM's to stop bundling Netscape
Recognizing that pre-installation by OEMs and bundling with the proprietary software of IAPs led more directly and efficiently to browser usage than any other practices in the industry, Microsoft devoted major efforts to usurping those two channels. Id. 143.
155-74. Second, Microsoft imposed stringent limits on the freedom of OEMs to reconfigure or modify Windows 95 and Windows 98 in ways that might enable OEMs to generate usage for Navigator in spite of the contractual and technological devices that Microsoft had employed to bind Internet Explorer to Windows. Id. 202-29. Finally, Microsoft used incentives and threats to induce especially important OEMs to design their distributional, promotional and technical efforts to favor Internet Explorer to the exclusion of Navigator. Id. 230-38.
Looks like preditory behavior to me. Apperently does to the Judge as well
The word "terrorist" really ought to be reserved for people who use terror as their means of doing things
These are people that go around showing photos of animal mutilations to young school children. If that dosn't fit that definition I don't know what does
If someone is incapable of expressing there views in a responsible and civil manor they should keep said views to themselves. There is no excusing most of PETA's actions in a sociaty that proports to be civilized. Frightening young childred, destroying private property, trampling on the rights of anyone that gets in there way. The term terrorist is too good for them.
Well I believe (this is the way I took it but there may have been a different intent on the part of the author) that the term "moral vegetarian" was intended to signify that they didn't make a point of trying to push there preferences on others (i.e. not a PETA member or anything along the same lines)
I have to agree here. A browser should be an integral part of an OS in this day and age
It wasn't microsoft bundling there browser with there OS that made it illigal per-say, it was the fact that they bar'd there OEM's from distibuting NS in addition/place of IE that made it an illigal product tie.
As long as the OEM's have the right to distribute netscape or some other compeating browser on the system too (and make said browser the default if they so choose, right down to removing all IE icons from the desktop, start menu, etc.) I can't say that I have a problem with IE staying in windows. Integration of networking services with the OS is a good thing, just look at the level of integration between networking services and the OS in linux and/or other UNIX work-a-likes for an example or the integrated browser in KDE for that matter. Its just the fact that the choice *must* be there.
I don't think asking them to remove the browser from the OS is a good thing. But I do think slapping them them upside the head when they try to force its use is.
In a way yes, in a way no. There is nothing illigal about MS bundeling there browser with windows. There is on the other hand a lot illigal about MS barring there OEM's from bundeling Netscape (or some other compeating technology) in addition/place of it. This is the point that many people seem to be missing. Saying that its illigal for Ms to simply to bundle there browser is akin to saying it illigal for them to include notepad for solitare simply because there are other third party clones compeating with those products too. Its the fact that Microsoft flat out threatened and barred there OEM's from distributing NS that is what made it an illigal product tie. --
I'm quite honestly at a loss of how to think of this one.
On the one hand you have to potentialy stagering possability for advances in the fields of artificial limbs, etc. that has a great potential to benifit humanity as a whole. The successes in creation of arificial replacment limbs has for all intents and purposes been stagnent for the last 100 years. The average artificial leg is little better then the wooden pegs used a century ago and even the state of the art is nothing more then a couple if hinges and springs. As for arms/hands there little better then a hook with the general high tech version having a closable "thumb" controlled be a cable running to a single muscle or tenden.
On the other hand you have the huge potential for abuse of a viable technology that could be derived from this research. How long until we have people getting "jacked up" in the style of Shadowrun or Johnny Mnomonic. Can you say "Super Soldier"?
Copyright issues and all that other dreck aside this is a realy bad move by the napster folks.
For one there alianating the band that is problably one of there biggest supporters among "signed artists" and one of the only bands thats taken the time to sit back and say "hey...shit...we're getting downloaded like crazy but our record sales are actualy going up as a result not down"
Second there not realy getting hurt that bad by it. I mean the offspring arn't making a hell of a lot of profit off of the things if you look at there prices (I used to produce promo stuff way back when and can honestly say that there not getting a hell of a lot of a return on these things at those prices) when you factor in production, cost of order processing,etc and from what I can see from the pictures on the offspring website there not trying to tie there product to napsters in any way (like putting there logo on the front and napsters on the back of anything stupid like that). If I was napster I'd be considering it free advertising and damn good press actualy
Oxygen only is harmful at extremely high pressures (ie, while scuba diving).
Well...actualy its the Nitrogen that causes the problem while scuba diving (bubbles forming in the blood stream after too quick of a decent or assent)...hence the name Nitrogen Narcosis commenly refered to as the bends.
Slashdot Mirror
Hate to say it but after further web searchs I've come to the conclusion that Ernie may be screwed.
There seems to be yet another Neomail, again providing web based e-mail related services. This one apperently released there first version in 1999 which would pre-date both Neomail by Ernie and the Neomail provided by NeoPets
This presents a major problem. Even if Ernie can block Neopets from registering the trademark all of his arguments would hold little-to-no water if the folks at Neomain decided to register it.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news like this. Especialy with the great repect I have for Ernie as a programmer and the love I have for Neomail, but be that as it may it does seem to rightfully belong to Neomain
My recommendation would probably be to just pack it up and go through the trouble of a namechange for the app
And just out of spite send an e-mail on over to Neomain telling them about NeoPets, I'm sure it would at least make for some amusing fireworks as two well funded legal departments got to fighting over it. :)
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...and what mail server? This is Slashdot. A WWW forum. No mail servers involved. Simple HTTP post to a CGI script.
You would think an IBM developer would be bright enough to clue in on these little details
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I paid over $100 for a marketing book and all it has in it is ads (about 3-5 per page) Don't think that ads would lower und-user cost. It'll only add to others profit margin!
ummmm...shouldn't a marketing text book by its very definition be filled with ads (i.e. examples)?
Although I think putting ads in, say, a math text is pretty low. We don't tend to have a problem with that here, at least not at the collage in the city. The UofA probably does. The schools here are pretty well funded by both the government and donations from local corporations (notice the word donation...as in they don't expect anything in return besides the tax write-off it gets them). As for networking, computing resources, etc. the city government came up with there Cybercity (lame name but good idea) initiative quite a few years ago. Every school (k-12, collage, etc.), major public building, and all businesses that are considered important to the cities growth/image to the rest of the world (the newspaper, radio stations, etc.) are all given a free connection directly into the cities fiber backbone for internet connectivity and really have no shortage of funds available for hardware.
--
However, the way I use victim, and I think is the prevalent usage is not someone who suffers due to their own poor choices (someone who drops out of college is not a victim they are meerly excersising poor judgement) but instead is someone who unfairly has negative consequences inflicted on them by another. In this sense then drug use is indeed victimless.
How about you drive your ass down to your local hospital and explain this "victimless crime" theory to the doctors and nurses looking after the couple of dozen babies born with addictions that are probably laying dieing in pediatrics...
How about you explain it to the families of the hundreds of people per year that get there heads blown off just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when either a deal went bad or some crack head decided he needed some cash to get his next fix...
Victimless crime my ass. I generaly have no problems with people that use drugs, a few of my friends do, but don't sit there lying to yourself that its a victimless crime...I know a hell of a lot of victims that would tend to disagree with you.
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It doesn't seem like anyone is being FORCED to warranty their software, just provide an adequate one should they decide to warranty it - which is not what the linked slashdot story implied. Mehr Info Bitte.
From my understanding (which admittedly may be flawed) what this basically amounts to is a set of "lemon laws" for high tech products (hardware, software, etc.).
If this is the case what it tries to enact is a set of base standards that a warranty must abide by. Those companies that don't use a warranty at all leave themselves wide open since they are then subject to the implied warranties created in any transaction with a consumer. Namely fitness for purpose and merchantability (i.e. it does we advertised it'll do)Traditionally software licence agreements have been used as a vehicle to disclaim any and all warranties, express or implied as opposed to providing information on what warranty is actually available (usually none). What this law hoped to do is remove the companies right to disclaim implied warranties and to force them into a minimum standard for the warranties they do provide.
Inevitably the software industries response to this will be that such laws would make it imposable for them to do business. I can't help but laugh at this since it is the exact same argument used by the auto industry years ago when there own lemon laws were enacted...and they still seem to make a mint while at the same time loosing there ability to screw consumers.
The only gotcha about this proposed law is that we as concerned citizens will have to make it very clear to congress that there must be some kind of exemption for free software. A "good Samaritan" clause if you will. If your getting something for free and your given the right to mess with its internals (whether you have the technical skill to pull it off or not) you should honestly have no right to sue anyone but yourself if it breaks
--
I think that was quite possibly the most intelligent set of comments/attitudes I have seen from anyone in the open source community in some time.
Thank You
Lately its seemed that a lot of people have been loosing sight of just why they do things. GNU/Linux and the rest of the free *nix family were built on people doing something because they loved it, because it was challenging and fun. In recent time's it has started to degrade into in to a badge, a status symbol for people to wear on there sleeves to say "hey, look, I'm special, I use/develop for Linux.". This is not how it should be. The "community" isn't some elite group, it isn't something that should be distilled down to a business model. Its a family of like minded individuals doing something because they love it.
I think I'd like everyone in the community who has since moved Linux from a hobby to a career to look in the mirror at least once a day and ask themselves, just as the average professional athlete must, "Why do I still play the game? Do I do it for the love or for the money?".
I hope you come up with an answer you can live with...
--
Let me guess...all Office for Linux components install themselves suid root and have full vbs support? ;)
--
Well, it depends on how you look at it. The GPL licence can be well summed up in one line:
"You have the right to do anything you want as long as you don't step on anyone elses rights in the process."
When looked at from that perspective the GPL tends to fall under "common sense" and "good and decent conduct". This is mainly set up to keep ubercorporations from taking GPL'd products that were released into the community in good faith by developers who for all intents and purposes were just trying to be good sumeritins and using there hard work to make money without any compensation to the author or the community there stealing from. As a person or a company I can take any piece of GPL'd software I want, modify it to fit my perticular needs at the time and use it free and clear. But if I want to redistribute it I'm forced to "keep it in the family" by keeping it GPL'd. So the only thing that I'm restricted from doing is hurting the author or opensource community by stealing there hard work for my own gains.
--
Quicktime? Never! We must have an open format!
ahhh...well...actualy QT generaly refers to the Qt crossplatform C++ GUI toolkit (which is what there talking about in this thread) as opposed to the Apple Quicktime media format.
--
The issue here isn't them adding non-standard features. As much as it pains me to say it microsoft has just as much right to introduce innovations into the market as any other company.
The main complaint is that there introducing all these shinny new propriatory features and not bothering to implement properly the things that ARE already standards (eg. standards complaint rendering of plain old HTML, CSS1-2, etc.) or are in some cases down right breaking them. Another problem is that most of there "new innovations" can be accomlished (in many cases better and easier) with technologies that are already in the pipeline for introduction as formal standards by w3c (e.g. DOM) so explain to me why they felt it was nessecary to reinvent the wheel (and do a compairativly poor job of it) as opposed to just implementing DOM and other technologies that are up before the standards board?
Its not a case of "if you don't like the new features don't program for them" its "pick a browser to support because your going to have a bitch of a time supporting all of them."
--
gaaa...neat...now thats something I've GOT to try ;)
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According to the CTO of Counterpane, e-commerce businesses 'don't have to prevent hacking; they have to manage their risks.' Interesting perspective from a security wonk.
Will, actualy its a pretty common perspective from...ummm...security "wonk"s
Any security specialist will tell you that the only secure system is either one that isn't connected to a network of any kind or one that has the power switch in the off possision
Network security is a constent game of risk managment. The more secure you make something, the less funtional and intuitive you make it for your end user. FTP is an inherently unsecure protical, but how many customers would be ready to kill you if you were running say a web host and killed the FTP service? Same goes of services such as telnet. There are secure alternatives, but again, your alianating your customers by forcing them to use something that in there minds at least is non-standard.
So it comes down to seeking a constent balence between the services you need to provide to make a buck and the risk your willing to take onto yourself againt crackers
This is also an attitude that is common among those in e-commerce circles. Companies don't even try to prevent all credit card fraud, the only way to do that would be to not offer credit card payments at all, they just try to keep within the "acceptable limits" of risk that they have set for there company.
--
Not last time I checked
You get channels enough to support 4 drives standard on most MB's. A Promis Ultra33, Ultra66, or IDE RAID card will get you channels for another four drives at the cost of 2 IRQ's. Thats about as far as you can go unless you happen to somehow magicly have another 2 IRQ's left for another card in which case you may be able to get away with adding another 4 drives for a total of 12.
I think he either accidently added a 0 (as in 2 75gig drives) or dropped a point (as in a 20.75 gig drive)
--
The RIAA holds the copyrights on almost all music produced by the record labels under it. If they didn't they wouldn't have the right to sue anybody, only the individual record labels would be able too. For all intents and purposes the RIAA is just a massive price fixing cartel that exists for no other reason then to be a bigass legal department. Sounds anticompetitive to me and is exactly what this law was apperently designed to address.
--
It is very unlikly that this will effect the ability of artists to hold the copyright of there own works, or even there record companies for that matter. This law specificly targets entities that use there copyrights in an anticompetive manor. i.e. massive cartels like the RIAA and the motion picture association that for all intents and purposes were only formed to provide an inroad for massive price fixing. Its any copyrights that they hold that would be invalidated.
If this is won it is quite likly that this will spill over into any future cases brought again companies such as microsoft, etc. as well
--
Actualy...no...they don't. To quote the findings of law:
Microsoft has presented no evidence that the contractual (or the technological) restrictions it placed on OEMs' ability to alter Windows derive from any of the enumerated rights explicitly granted to a copyright holder under the Copyright Act. Instead, Microsoft argues that the restrictions "simply restate" an expansive right to preserve the "integrity"of its copyrighted software against any "distortion," "truncation," or "alteration," a right nowhere mentioned among the Copyright Act's list of exclusive rights, 17 U.S.C. 106, thus raising some doubt as to its existence. See Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 155 (1973) (not all uses of a work are within copyright holder's control; rights limited to specifically granted "exclusive rights"); cf. 17 U.S.C. 501(a) (infringement means violating specifically enumerated rights). 2
Please read the relivent case law before going off on a tangent. Then continue reading along this thread for another quote from the Findings of law that specificly states that MS threatend OEM's to stop bundling Netscape
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Quote: Findings of Law
Recognizing that pre-installation by OEMs and bundling with the proprietary software of IAPs led more directly and efficiently to browser usage than any other practices in the industry, Microsoft devoted major efforts to usurping those two channels. Id. 143.
155-74. Second, Microsoft imposed stringent limits on the freedom of OEMs to reconfigure or modify Windows 95 and Windows 98 in ways that might enable OEMs to generate usage for Navigator in spite of the contractual and technological devices that Microsoft had employed to bind Internet Explorer to Windows. Id. 202-29. Finally, Microsoft used incentives and threats to induce especially important OEMs to design their distributional, promotional and technical efforts to favor Internet Explorer to the exclusion of Navigator. Id. 230-38.
Looks like preditory behavior to me. Apperently does to the Judge as well
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The word "terrorist" really ought to be reserved for people who use terror as their means of doing things
These are people that go around showing photos of animal mutilations to young school children. If that dosn't fit that definition I don't know what does
If someone is incapable of expressing there views in a responsible and civil manor they should keep said views to themselves. There is no excusing most of PETA's actions in a sociaty that proports to be civilized. Frightening young childred, destroying private property, trampling on the rights of anyone that gets in there way. The term terrorist is too good for them.
--
Well I believe (this is the way I took it but there may have been a different intent on the part of the author) that the term "moral vegetarian" was intended to signify that they didn't make a point of trying to push there preferences on others (i.e. not a PETA member or anything along the same lines)
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I have to agree here. A browser should be an integral part of an OS in this day and age
It wasn't microsoft bundling there browser with there OS that made it illigal per-say, it was the fact that they bar'd there OEM's from distibuting NS in addition/place of IE that made it an illigal product tie.
As long as the OEM's have the right to distribute netscape or some other compeating browser on the system too (and make said browser the default if they so choose, right down to removing all IE icons from the desktop, start menu, etc.) I can't say that I have a problem with IE staying in windows. Integration of networking services with the OS is a good thing, just look at the level of integration between networking services and the OS in linux and/or other UNIX work-a-likes for an example or the integrated browser in KDE for that matter. Its just the fact that the choice *must* be there.
I don't think asking them to remove the browser from the OS is a good thing. But I do think slapping them them upside the head when they try to force its use is.
--
In a way yes, in a way no. There is nothing illigal about MS bundeling there browser with windows. There is on the other hand a lot illigal about MS barring there OEM's from bundeling Netscape (or some other compeating technology) in addition/place of it. This is the point that many people seem to be missing. Saying that its illigal for Ms to simply to bundle there browser is akin to saying it illigal for them to include notepad for solitare simply because there are other third party clones compeating with those products too. Its the fact that Microsoft flat out threatened and barred there OEM's from distributing NS that is what made it an illigal product tie.
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Johnny Mnomonic had what? 100 Mb? Something Like that?
Thanks....but I'll just stick a zip-disk in my pocked for now.
The reference was actualy towards the female lead as well as other charactors within the movie that had artificialy enhanced reflex's, strength, etc.
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I'm quite honestly at a loss of how to think of this one.
On the one hand you have to potentialy stagering possability for advances in the fields of artificial limbs, etc. that has a great potential to benifit humanity as a whole. The successes in creation of arificial replacment limbs has for all intents and purposes been stagnent for the last 100 years. The average artificial leg is little better then the wooden pegs used a century ago and even the state of the art is nothing more then a couple if hinges and springs. As for arms/hands there little better then a hook with the general high tech version having a closable "thumb" controlled be a cable running to a single muscle or tenden.
On the other hand you have the huge potential for abuse of a viable technology that could be derived from this research. How long until we have people getting "jacked up" in the style of Shadowrun or Johnny Mnomonic. Can you say "Super Soldier"?
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Copyright issues and all that other dreck aside this is a realy bad move by the napster folks.
For one there alianating the band that is problably one of there biggest supporters among "signed artists" and one of the only bands thats taken the time to sit back and say "hey...shit...we're getting downloaded like crazy but our record sales are actualy going up as a result not down"
Second there not realy getting hurt that bad by it. I mean the offspring arn't making a hell of a lot of profit off of the things if you look at there prices (I used to produce promo stuff way back when and can honestly say that there not getting a hell of a lot of a return on these things at those prices) when you factor in production, cost of order processing,etc and from what I can see from the pictures on the offspring website there not trying to tie there product to napsters in any way (like putting there logo on the front and napsters on the back of anything stupid like that). If I was napster I'd be considering it free advertising and damn good press actualy
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Oxygen only is harmful at extremely high pressures (ie, while scuba diving).
Well...actualy its the Nitrogen that causes the problem while scuba diving (bubbles forming in the blood stream after too quick of a decent or assent)...hence the name Nitrogen Narcosis commenly refered to as the bends.
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